Jason Furman and Olivier Blanchard on the Border Adjustment Tax

Net revenues from border adjustment taxes and subsidies will be positive so long as the United States runs a trade deficit. But if foreign debt is not to explode, trade deficits must eventually be offset by trade surpluses in the future. Net revenues that are positive today will eventually have to turn negative. Indeed, any positive net revenues today must be offset by an equal discounted value of negative net revenues in the future.

Suppose that higher border adjustment revenues today are used to decrease other taxes—corporate tax cuts for example—leaving the budget unaffected in the short run. As trade deficits eventually turn into trade surpluses, and thus border adjustment net revenues turn from positive to negative, the other tax cuts it initially financed will still be on the books. Sooner or later, taxes will have to increase, or spending will have to be reduced, to compensate for the shortfall. Just as when the government issues debt, taxpayers get a break now, but they will have to pay off the cost of the debt in the future.

What if the exchange rate does not adjust fully? The story becomes more complicated, but the bottom line is the same. Depending on the demand and supply elasticities of imports and exports, the incidence of taxes will fall partly on US consumers, partly on foreigner producers; the incidence of subsidies will fall partly on US exporters, partly on foreign consumers. In fact, with incomplete exchange rate adjustment, it is plausible that in the short run US consumers will pay more than 100 percent of the net taxes raised—effectively financing a transfer to foreign producers as well. In any case, as trade deficits turn to surpluses, the roles will be inverted. What foreigners paid, they will get back. What US taxpayers received, they will have to give back. In the end, just as for debt finance, whatever tax breaks they got now, they will have to pay for later. On net, again, foreigners will not contribute.

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