综合与分类相结合的个税改革:半二元模式的选择与征管

从国际上看,个人所得税制模式的演化主流不再是综合所得税制,而是综合与分类相结合的混合税制。这种混合税制主要包括半综合、半二元和二元税制三种类型,三者在公平与效率上各有长短。如果我国将要建立的综合分类税制既要注重收入分配的公平,又要注重经济发展和税收管理的效率,那么大分类、小综合的半二元税制模式应当是较理想的选择。在税制设计上,可把目前的11类所得整合为三大类:劳动所得、资本所得和生产经营所得,分别适用不同税率和进行税前扣除。在征收管理上,这种税制模式便于继续实施以个人为纳税单位及代扣代缴、分期预缴和年度申报相结合的纳税方式,其中工薪所得宜实行累积扣缴法,使大部分纳税人在纳税年度结束后无需申报。这种相对简便的税制模式不仅适应了公平与效率兼顾的个税改革趋势,而且便于与现行分类税制衔接。     

Regressive Tax Rates and the Unethical Taxation of Salaried Income

In a regressive tax system, lower-income taxpayers pay larger percentages of their incomes in taxes compared to higher-income taxpayers. Although most policymakers and citizens view regressive taxation as generally unfair and unethical, the U.S. tax system taxes wage, salary, and self-employment income in a manner that deliberately subjects lower-income taxpayers to marginal tax rates that are greater than those imposed on higher-income taxpayers. As a result, some lower-income taxpayers pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes than higher-income taxpayers. In this essay, we argue that this regressiveness in the taxation of salaried income is unfair and unethical. We then evaluate President Obama’s social security plan, which would retain most of the current tax system’s regressive structure. Finally, we offer two simple alternative proposals that are non-regressive, and thus more fair and ethical approaches to the taxation of salaried income.     

Cigarette Consumption in Different U.S. States, 1955–1998: An Empirical Analysis of the Potential Use of Excise Taxation to Reduce Smoking

The use of excise taxation as a tool for financing part of Medicaid and national health care costs as well as for discouraging smoking behavior was a major political issue in the 1980s and early 1990s. It failed to gain Congressional support despite a significant increase in both federal and most state tax rates over the past twenty years. Annual data and OLS techniques are used to analyze the demand for cigarettes in the 50 states and the District of Columbia over the period from 1955 to 1998. Results show the demand for cigarettes to be relatively price inelastic. However, the estimates indicate more elasticity for high tax states than for low tax states. The price inelastic coefficient of the aggregate demand suggests that the main impact of taxation is likely to result in increased revenues to states rather than in directly reducing tobacco usage. The ultimate impact on smoking usage depends on how these increased revenues are spent and whether they become directed at smoking reduction. Cigarette demand is also found to be income inelastic, which implies that the tobacco industry has been growing less rapidly or even declining relative to the rising trend of the per capita disposable personal income in many states.     

Can state tax policies be used to promote entrepreneurial activity?

Despite a recent flurry of empirical research on the effects of taxes on small business activity, state-level taxes faced by entrepreneurs have been overlooked by most of the existing literature. Using a 50-state panel of tax policy information spanning the years 1989 through 2002, our analysis reveals that state tax policies generally do not appear to have quantitatively important effects on entrepreneurial activity. When we find statistically important effects, we find that higher individual income tax rates, the existence of a state-level estate, inheritance or gift tax, and a higher weight on the sales factor in the state corporate income tax apportionment formula all slightly reduce a state’s share of the national entrepreneurial stock. Results also indicate that states with more progressive personal income tax structures and states that have more aggressive corporate income taxes through the imposition of a combined reporting requirement both tend to have slightly higher entrepreneurship rates. The composition of state tax portfolios is not found to be a significant determinant of state entrepreneurship.     

Reformbedarf bei der steuerlichen Berücksichtigung von Kinderbetreuungskosten

In Germany, parents’ taxable income base is reduced by the costs of childcare. The way this is done at the moment is not suitable: for some parents, the income tax deduction is too high, while for others it is too low. The actual tax regulations concerning childcare costs do not support the ability-to-pay principle. This paper discusses how the costs of children and childcare should be treated for tax purposes and which reforms would improve the fairness of the tax treatment of taxpayers with children compared to the tax treatment of taxpayers without children.     

Kalte Progression wird nach Einführung der Schuldenbremse ein zunehmendes Problem

As taxpayers typically pay relatively little attention to low levels of inflation induced income tax bracket creep, policy makers tend to regularly postpone correction of this problem. Eventually, however, the fiscal illusion fades away, and political pressure for tax relief arises once the cumulative increase of the average tax rate exceeds a critical threshold. Using Germany as an example, it is shown that bracket creep can provoke revenue cycles in public budgets that hinder governments’ compliance with the numerical budget rules. An indexation of the tax tariff, which would provide an automatic correction for bracket creep, could prevent such fluctuations and thus provide a favourable framework for the debt brake.     

Plädoyer für einen Ersatz der Grunderwerbsteuer

Since Germany reformed its federal structure in 2006, federal states have been able to set their own rates of real-estate transfer tax. This limited tax autonomy at state level has resulted in a rate increase to 6.5%, which suggests that a narrow tax base is being exploited for purely fiscal purposes. The weaknesses of the real-estate transfer tax can be eliminated by integrating it into value-added tax. States’ lost revenue can be offset by increasing their share of value-added tax. The resulting horizontal revenue shifts between federal states are an advantage compared with today’s unjust tax burden differences.     

The Effect of State Corporate Income Tax Rate Cuts on Job Creation

This paper compares the employment growth of states that enacted corporate income tax rate cuts in the past 23 years with those making no changes. Overall employment comparisons from 1990 to 2012 suggest that a reduction in the corporate income tax rate is associated with faster job creation. The states that cut corporate income tax rates started with slower employment growth than the states that made no changes. However, the growth gaps between the two groups of states disappeared in about five years after the tax cuts were made. Regression results confirm the observation that lower corporate tax rates have a significant and positive effect on employment growth. The enactment of a tax rate cut also has the additional but temporary benefit of promoting job creation as businesses adjust to the new tax rate. However, this benefit is temporary and only occurs during first year of the enactment of a tax cut.     

Business Groups and Corporate Social Responsibility

We present an analysis of over 400 comments about complying with tax obligations extracted from online discussion forums for freelancers. While the topics investigated by much of the literature on taxpayer behaviour are theory driven, we aimed to explore the universe of online discussions about tax in order to extract those topics that are most relevant to taxpayers. The forum discussions were subjected to a qualitative thematic analysis, and we present a model of the ‘universe’ of tax as reflected in taxpayer discussions. The model comprises several main actors (tax laws, tax authority, tax practitioners, and the taxpayer’s social network) and describes the multiple ways in which they relate to taxpayers’ behaviour. We also conduct a more focused analysis to show that the majority of taxpayers seem unconcerned with many of the variables that have been the focus of tax behaviour research (e.g. audits, penalties, etc.), and that most people are motivated to be compliant and are more concerned with how to comply than whether to comply. Moreover, we discuss how these ‘real-world’ tax discussions question common assumptions in the study of tax behaviour and how they inform our understanding of business ethics more generally.     

Der Reformationstag als gesetzlicher Feiertag und seine fiskalischen Effekte

In the German system of fiscal equalisation, Länder (states) with below-average tax revenue receive above average payments. The difference between the average and the own tax revenue per capita is compensated up to 63%. To prevent states from getting payments from other states by lowering their own tax rates, tax revenue with taxing autonomy is standardised. States can also influence their tax revenues by changing the number of holidays because each state decides on its own. In 2018, the Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Schleswig Holstein introduced designated Reformation Day as a holiday (Berlin also plans to add a holiday). A state with numerous holidays will have lower tax revenues and higher payments in the fiscal equalisation system than the same state with no extra holidays. To consider each state’s real ability to pay the fiscal equalisation system, it is necessary to eliminate the effect of differing holidays. This paper shows the fiscal consequence of the new holiday and a way to neutralise this effect and calculates the impact to the states’ payments in the fiscal equalisation system.     

The Role of Refund Expectations in Savings: Evidence from Volunteer Income Tax Preparation Programs in the United States

Millions of households in the United States receive federal income tax refunds annually, many for substantial amounts. Consumers can use the proceeds of income tax refunds for spending and saving, but tests of prior programs to encourage savings show low take‐up rates. This field study shows that the majority of tax filers make no estimate of their refund amount in advance, but that consumers who are able to estimate their refund in advance of completing their tax returns tend to be reasonably accurate in their estimates. Moreover, taxpayers who estimate their refunds before filing their taxes are more likely to save their refunds than those who do not. These results highlight the importance of expectations and planning with respect to savings decisions.     

税负水平上升对我国税收结构变动的影响

借鉴税收结构变动指数分析中国税负水平与税收结构整体波动的关系,并运用省际面板数据构建计量模型,进一步考察近十几年来税负水平的不断攀升对中国税收结构变动的影响。研究结果显示:税负水平的不断上升推动了税收结构的大幅调整,且使得税收增长更加依赖企业所得税;物价上涨和货币化水平对中国税收结构的变化产生了不同的影响。     

Challenging Masculinity in CSR Disclosures: Silencing of Women’s Voices in Tanzania’s Mining Industry

Guilt is a powerful emotion that is known to influence ethical decision-making. Nevertheless, the role of guilt cognitions in influencing restorative behaviour following an unethical action is not well understood. Guilt cognitions are interrelated beliefs about an individual’s role in a negative event. We experimentally investigate the joint impact of three guilt cognitions—responsibility for a decision, justification for a decision, and foreseeability of consequences—on a taxpayer’s decision to make a tax amnesty disclosure. Tax amnesties encourage delinquent taxpayers to self-correct to avoid severe penalties that would result if their tax evasion were discovered. Our findings suggest a three-way interaction effect such that taxpayers are likely to make tax amnesty disclosures when they foresee that they will be caught by the tax authority, unless they can diffuse responsibility for their evasion and justify their evasion. Implications for tax policy and tax professionals are discussed.     

Double income taxation as a response to tax competition in the EU

The following article discusses the undesired consequences of tax competition and presents a proposal for tax reform derived from a very general normative basis: the idea of exchange between governments and taxpayers and the principle of equality. The aim is to tie tax competition to jurisdictional competition in general and thereby maintain tax competition as a productive procedure instead of abolishing it by harmonising tax systems. Surprisingly, systematic double taxation of income, as factor income following the source principle and as citizens' income following the residence principle, is one element of the solution. The other is unitary taxation of business income.     

Does health reform affect self-employment? Evidence from Massachusetts

This paper evaluates whether the implementation of the 2006 Massachusetts health reform law affected the decision of taxpayers to be self-employed, using both difference-in-differences and synthetic control methods on a panel of tax returns that spans 1999–2010. Though tenuous, our results suggest that the reform led to a decline in the rate of taxpayers earning a majority of income from self-employment. In addition, it appears to have had a positive impact on earning some self-employment income among joint filers and earning the majority of income from self-employment among older taxpayers, but these were offset by negative impacts on single filers and taxpayers age 35–49.     

Neuordnung der Besteuerungskompetenzen bei der Einkommensteuer

The controversies over the reform of the German intergovernmental fiscal equalisation system generally concern the equalisation formula at the last step of the tax-sharing system. In order to achieve a financial architecture that truly corresponds with the tasks of the federal government, the states and the municipalities, the tax-sharing schedules also need to be reconsidered. To share the personal income tax according to proportional tax rates for the states and municipalities and to leave the progressive tax rates to the federal level would not only deliver horizontally more equal tax revenues for the sub-federal tiers of government but also increase the vertical flexibility of tax distribution if the federal and state governments then had the right to change “their” tax rates without the approval of the Bundesrat or Bundestag.     

The medical expense deduction and income levels: Progressive or regressive?

The medical expense deduction (MED) allows taxpayers to deduct from taxable income a proportion of their out-of-pocket medical insurance and health care expenses. Because the rate of subsidy is equal to the marginal tax rate previous studies have found MED to be a regressive tax mechanism biased toward benefiting higher-income taxpayers. The authors demonstrate, using GINI coefficients, that MED makes the tax structure more progressive than it would otherwise be and increases equality of after-tax incomes.     

Nimmt der Länderfinanzausgleich den Anreiz zum Steuervollzug?

The German Länder are increasingly coming under criticism for insufficiently fulfilling their federal duty to enforce tax. A reason suggested for this is the lack of financial incentives: the Länder have to bear the staffing costs, but as a result of fiscal equalisation among Germany’s federal states, they are only allowed to keep a fraction of the additional income collected. The author shows that this is a myth: additional tax inspectors would still bring in good returns for the Länder. Moreover, it is the financially stronger states that are allowed to keep a larger share of their tax income, but which carry out fewer inspections. Thus, higher financial incentives are linked with poorer tax enforcement.     

Länderfi nanzausgleich,Steuerwettbewerb und Steuersalienz

Jurisdictions that engage in inter regional tax competition usually try to lessen competitive pressures by substituting salient tax instruments with hidden ones. Given this, the author investigates the effi ciency consequences of inter regional tax competition and fi scal equalisation in a federal system when taxpayers fail to optimally react to shrouded attributes of local tax policy. If the statutory tax rate is a relatively salient instrument and taxpayers pay little attention to the quality and frequency of tax enforcement, the underlying substitution of tax instruments with the aim of reducing the perceived tax price may suppress the under exploitation of tax bases that is typically triggered by fi scal equalisation.     

外资企业税收负担与FDI规模——基于省级面板数据的分析

本文将外资企业的增值税和企业所得税税负作为主要的解释变量，利用省级面板数据来实证检验其对地区FDI规模的影响，并通过测算相关系数来分析FDI对增值税和企业所得税税负的敏感程度，分析表明：不论是增值税税负还是企业所得税税负，都对地区的FDI规模有较强的负面影响，相比于增值税税负，FDI对企业所得税税负的敏感程度更高。