It is well known that, for a specific tax, its economic incidence does not depend on which side of the market has the legal obligation to pay the tax. In this paper, we show that, for an ad valorem tax, this legal incidence does matter for the economic incidence. In particular, when a government imposes an ad valorem tax rate on the sale of a commodity, the resulting reduction in the market equilibrium level of sales will be larger when sellers are obliged to pay the tax than when buyers are obliged to pay the tax.

中文翻译：

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从价税的法律责任问题

众所周知，对于某一特定税种来说，其经济负担并不取决于市场的哪一方负有纳税的法定义务。在本文中，我们表明，对于从价税来说，这种法律关联性确实对经济关联性很重要。特别是，当政府对商品销售征收从价税时，卖方有义务纳税时所导致的市场均衡销售水平的减少将比买方有义务纳税时更大。