Taxing Phantom Income and the Simple Economics of Paying In Kind

Modern tax instruments impose cash taxes on non-cash bases. Property taxes, income taxes, gift taxes and estate taxes all must be paid in cash, even though income, gifts and estates only sometimes take the form of cash, and property never does. If it is costly to convert the tax base into cash, taxpayers may suffer from liquidity problems that require them to make painful adjustments to their savings or consumption. Although concern about taxpayer liquidity has shaped tax law and looms large in current debates about wealth taxation, tax accounting, and mark-to-market reforms, the economic factors that influence the welfare costs of cash tax collection have not been explored in a rigorous way. In this paper I present an economic analysis of the liquidity problem, identifying the factors that determine the welfare costs of cash tax collection. I apply this analysis to the property tax and to the taxation of income that accrues before it is received, sometimes called “phantom income.”