A Method for Measuring the Relative Taxation of Families

Empirical studies have been conducted to determine whether a certain tax or an entire tax system is effectively progressive or regressive. The findings can be conditional on the choice of the units-income classes or families-whose tax rates are to be compared. A computational method for characterizing the relative taxation of families is proposed, and the method is applied to reanalyze data used recently in a major study by Pechman and Okner. It is important that quantitative methods used to detect progression and regression be suitable for their proposed task. Current practices in tax incidence studies need to be supplemented by the calculation of relative frequencies.