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on Public Finance |
| By: | Karel Mertens |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the dynamic effects of marginal tax rate changes on income reported on tax returns in the United States over the 1950-2010 period. After isolating exogenous variation in average marginal tax rates in structural vector autoregressions using a narrative identification approach, I find large positive effects in the top 1% of the income distribution. In contrast to earlier findings based on tax return data, I also find large effects in other income percentile brackets. A hypothetical tax reform cutting marginal rates only for the top 1% leads to sizeable increases in top 1\% incomes and has a positive effect on real GDP. There are also spillover effects to incomes outside of the top 1%, but top marginal rate cuts lead to greater inequality in pre-tax incomes. |
| JEL: | E6 E62 H2 H24 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19171&r=pub |
| By: | Keller, Sara; Schanz, Deborah |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a new tax measure - the Tax Attractiveness Index - reflecting the attractiveness of a country's tax environment and the tax planning opportunities that are offered. Specifically, the Tax Attractiveness Index covers 16 different components of real-world tax systems, such as the statutory tax rate, the taxation of dividends and capital gains, withholding taxes, the existence of a group taxation regime, loss offset provision, the double tax treaty network, thin capitalization rules, and controlled foreign company (CFC) rules. We develop methods to quantify each tax factor. The Tax Attractiveness Index is constructed for 100 countries over the 2005 to 2009 period. Regional clusters in the index as well as in the application of certain tax rules can be observed. The evaluation of individual countries based on the index corresponds - but is not totally identical - with the OECD's black respectively grey list. By comparing the Tax Attractiveness Index with the statutory tax rate, we reveal that even high tax countries offer favorable tax condi-tions. Hence, the statutory tax rate is not a suitable proxy for a country's tax climate in any case since countries may set other incentives to attract firms and investments. -- |
| Keywords: | tax measure,tax attractiveness,tax planning,multinational company |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:arqudp:143&r=pub |
| By: | Richard M. Bird (University of Toronto); Eric M. Zolt |
| Abstract: | Times change. In the words of an old English ballad, some things seem to have “turned upside down” in recent years. Since 2000, Latin America has become less unequal, with lower levels of poverty and likely greater economic mobility (Lustig, Lopez-Calvo and Ortiz-Juarez 2012), assisted in part by more progressive fiscal policy (Mahon 2012). In contrast, the United States has become more unequal (Piketty and Saez 2003, 2013), while poverty has remained relatively constant (U.S. Census Bureau 2012), economic mobility has likely declined (Hungerford 2008), and tax and spending policies have become less effective in reducing inequality (Harris and Sammartino 2011). This chapter examines whether the tide has really changed in Latin America or in the United States, and, if it has, what may lie ahead for these two regions of the Americas? Do recent events portend fortune or misery? Although the primary cause of the more equal income distribution in Latin America is probably the sharp increase in growth and employment following the challenging political and economic decade of the 1990s (Gasparini and Lustig 2011), fiscal policy played at least some role. Indeed, recent Latin American experience suggests that the pessimism prevalent since the 1970s about the extent to which taxation can affect income distribution has perhaps been misguided. Economic, social and political changes can and do give rise to new norms and power configurations, which sometimes result in important changes in the social and fiscal contract underlying governance structures. |
| Date: | 2013–05–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper1315&r=pub |