So You Want a Carbon Tax: How Do You Design It?

Abstract

This chapter reviews the nuts and bolts of implementing a carbon tax. Invoking principles of administrative simplicity, ease of compliance, and avoidance of design features that dilute the price signal, it gives practical advice on who should be responsible for collecting the tax and remitting it to the government. It explains how the tax should handle the possibility that we can capture and permanently store carbon dioxide emissions and how we should tax emissions related to internationally traded goods so the United States is not disadvantaged in global trade. Finally, it identifies, and warns policymakers away from, various pitfalls in carbon tax design.