Browsing by Subject "tax"
- Results Per Page
- Sort Options
Item Open Access A Comparison of Values around Cruise Tax in Iceland and Alaska(2018) Stith, MichaelaCruise ships pose many environmental harms: they emit more black carbon and CO₂ per passenger-mile than any other vehicle, discharge untreated sewage and wastewater into the open ocean, carry large quantities of heavy fuel oil onboard, and transport invasive species via ballast water. As the Arctic Ocean melts and becomes more accessible to marine vessels, cruise lines have taken advantage of the “last chance tourism” phenomenon and increased the numbers of cruise ships that tour the Arctic. Without sufficient regulation, the influx of cruise ships could create negative impacts for the Arctic environment. In this study I use Alaska’s Cruise Ship Tax Initiative as a model for cruise regulation and examine the high-level values that would influence Icelanders to adopt a similar, explicitly environmental per-passenger cruise tax. To determine the values to which advocates of a cruise tax should appeal, we interviewed twenty policymakers and stakeholders in Ísafjörður and Reykjavík, Iceland with the laddering method. As an extension of the study I interviewed one government administrator and one cruise tax advocate in Southeast Alaska to compile lessons learned from the implementation of the Alaska Cruise Ship Tax Initiative. The values from each location were compared to find which lessons would be relevant for Icelanders. The value categories that would influence the tax’s implementation were good governance, cultural richness, quality of life, regional survival, economic growth, nature’s inherent value and resource-based life. Icelandic participants showed low faith in government’s efficacy – i.e. ability to do what it says it will do – and expressed concerns that dependence on tourism and the national government’s marginalization of the Westfjords could negatively impact regional survival. Overall, sustainable tourism development and environmental protection of natural areas were favored by Icelandic interviewees. To advocate a per-passenger environmental tax, stakeholders and policymakers could emphasize the tax’s capacity to encourage sustainable tourism development by building environmental infrastructure (especially paths and waste treatment facilities) and limiting mass tourism. Based on Alaskan experiences, Icelanders should strongly reconsider their dismissal of monitoring if they want to ensure a pristine environment.Item Open Access Wages, Work Hours, and Work Effort: How Tax Rates Affect Taxpayers' Occupational Choice(2021) Nguyen, LinhWhile labor studies of the effects of income taxation have often focused on labor force participation and work hour decisions, Feldstein (1995) argued that taxpayers ultimately want to adjust their taxable income in response to changes in marginal tax rates. He also pointed out that adjusting taxable income is not limited to changing hours of work. For instance, facing higher tax rates, individuals may reduce their taxable income by giving up high-paid occupations that require high levels of effort in exchange for jobs that pay lower wages but are less onerous. In this dissertation, I examine how individuals change their occupations to adjust their wages, levels of work effort, and number of work hours in response to changes in marginal tax rates. In particular, I estimate effects of the switch from separate to joint taxation at the federal level in 1948 on married couples’ occupations. This policy increased marginal tax rates for wives but decreased them for husbands. My results show that joint taxation had no effect on husbands, reduced labor force participation rates among wives, and induced wives who remained in the labor force to choose occupations that paid lower wages, required lower effort, but involved the same level of full-time work. These results reveal that under some circumstances, individuals may respond to higher tax rates by reducing work effort instead of reducing work hours. The largest effects of joint taxation were on middle-age wives, who faced the largest husband-wife earning gap among all wives.