Redistributive Capital Taxation Revisited

This paper uses a rich quantitative model with endogenous skill acquisition to show that capital-skill complementarity provides a quantitatively significant rationale to tax capital for redistributive governments. The optimal capital income tax rate is 67 percent, while it is 61 percent in an identically calibrated model without capital-skill complementarity. The skill premium falls from 1.9 to 1.84 along the transition following the optimal reform in the capital-skill complementarity model, implying substantial indirect redistribution from skilled to unskilled workers. These results show that a redistributive government should take into account capital-skill complementarity when taxing capital.