US Tariffs are an Arbitrary and Regressive Tax

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US tariffs are an arbitrary and regressive tax, by Jason Furman, Katheryn Russ, Jay Shambaugh, VoxEU: Tariffs – taxes on imported goods – likely impose a heavier burden on lower-income households, as these households generally spend more on traded goods as a share of expenditure/income and because of the higher level of tariffs placed on some key consumer goods. This column estimates the tariff burden by income group and by family structure using a new dataset constructed by matching of granular data on trade and consumer spending. The findings suggest that tariffs function as a regressive tax that weighs most heavily on women and single parents. ...