The Joint Economic Committee has released Excess Burden of Federal Taxes Imposes High Economic Cost by Ranking Member Jim Saxton:
The overall burden of taxation is much larger than the tax receipts that government collects each year because taxes distort the behavior of individuals and firms. These distortions reduce potential output or economic welfare. Economists refer to this reduction as the excess burden or deadweight loss of taxation, which is usually expressed as a percent of tax collections either on average or at the margin (the last dollar of tax collected).
Update: Linda Beale (Wayne State) has a critical review here.




