Interregional redistribution through tax surcharge

The paper considers a utilitarian federal government that levies a tax to finance a national public good or to effect a redistributive policy. Regions differ in their incomes and in their preferences for a local public good. First, we assume that the central government observes each region's public expenditures (and, hence, local tax revenues) but cannot perfectly observe revenues and preferences. We derive the (constrained) Pareto-efficient allocation and show how it can be implemented by a surcharge on local taxes. The level of redistribution that can be achieved is limited by the fact that it may be difficult, or even impossible, to distinguish low-income regions with a high preference for the public good from high-income regions with a low preference. Then we allow for the possibility that the central government can observe incomes through a costly audit. We examine the optimal audit policy and study the impact of audits on the optimal taxation scheme. Throughout the paper we focus on the properties of average and marginal tax rates and on the resulting under- or overprovision of regional public goods.     

Education, Mobility of Labour and Tax Competition

We show that wage-taxfinanced subsidies encourage investment in risky education andoffer welfare gains. Tax competition and labour mobility maylead to substantial erosion of regional taxation. On the otherhand, mobility insures against region-specific shocks encouraginginvestment in education. Thus, welfare effects on the educatedand the owners of the fixed factor may go in either direction.Tax competition is especially fierce if the governments careabout the owners of the fixed factor. Elimination of their interestsfrom the governments' objective functions results in a Pareto-improvementin a federation with tax competition.     

中印服务贸易增值的比较研究

服务贸易统计的复杂性高于商品贸易,全球范围内服务贸易的国家间贸易统计数据更是严重匮乏,发达国家的服务贸易统计数据较发展中国家略为丰富.全球化下的商品价值链研究揭示了商品生产过程的分散和地理集中化趋势,与此同时服务价值链研究日益受到关注,服务业产业链对生产网络的影响以及发展趋势亟待明确.根据OECD的增值数据库,通过分析中国和印度服务业增值出口的现状,发现中印两国在服务业增值出口中呈现出各自典型特征.     

Shared Tax Sources and Public Expenditures

This paper deals with a specific vertical assignment of public functions in a federation: Two levels of government share both the same tax source and expenditure on a productivity increasing public service. We consider surplus maximizing Leviathan governments which provide public services in order to increase their potential tax base. The Nash equilibrium is characterized by overtaxation and relative to surplus maximization—depending on whether or not the public goods are sufficiently complementary with the entire tax base—either underprovision or overprovision of the public service. The implications of these results, in terms of welfare and potential use for earmarking taxes are also considered.     

全球化和发展中国家财政改革的必要

全球化为发展中国家带来压力，促使他们增加公共支出以改善国家的基础设施，改进制度，弥补为了纠正错误政策而支付的最终成本，补偿某些在迅速的全球化中受到最大影响的群体，对其中的一些人进行再培训，用最基本的现代保障网络去取代传统的简单无效的社会保障体系。各国应首先努力提高公共税收的使用效率，然后改革其税制，通过征收个人所得税和增值税，尤其是后者，来提高税收。     

Fiscal externalities and the design of intergovernmental grants

This paper describes the tax and expenditure externalities that can occur in a federation, focusing on the (relatively neglected) vertical tax and expenditure externalities which arise when state governments' tax and expenditure decisions affect the federal government's budget constraint and vice versa. Formulas are derived for matching grants which correct the distortions in governments' decision-making caused by fiscal externalities. With vertical tax externalities, the matching revenue grant may result in transfers from the state government to the federal government. With vertical expenditure externalities, the federal government should provide a matching expenditure grant equal to the additional federal revenue that is generated from an additional dollar spent by a state on productivityenhancing activities such as education.     

关于利用税收杠杆调节跨境资金流动的设想

近年来,伴随着我国经济平稳较快增长与经济开放程度的不断扩大,我国跨境资金流动规模明显增加,且波动频率和幅度逐渐增大,由此增加了国内宏观调控的复杂性。本文借鉴托宾税的思想,在介绍税收杠杆国际经验和实施难点的基础上,提出在国内利用税收杠杆收窄跨境资金套利空间、增强对跨境资金流动分类管理的初步设想,以期为完善跨境资金调控政策提供参考。     

Tax Setting in a Federal System: The Case of Personal Income Taxation in Canada

In a decentralised tax system, the effects of tax policies enacted by one government are not confined to its own jurisdiction. First, if both the regional and the federal levels of government co-occupy the same fields of taxation, tax rate increases by one layer of government will reduce taxes collected by the other. Second, if the tax base is mobile, tax rate increases by one regional government will raise the amount of taxes collected by other regional governments. These sources of fiscal interdependence are called in the literature vertical and horizontal tax externalities, respectively. Third, as Smart (1998) shows, if equalisation transfers are present, an increase in the standard equalisation tax rate provides incentives to raise taxes to the receiving provinces. A way to check the empirical relevance of these hypotheses is to test for the existence of interactions between the regional tax rate, on the one hand, and the federal tax rate, the tax rate set by competing regions, and the standard equalisation tax rate, on the other hand. Following this approach, this paper estimates provincial tax setting functions with data on Canadian personal income taxation for the period 1982–1996. We find a significant positive response of provincial tax rates to changes in the federal income tax rate, the tax rates of competing provinces, and the standard equalisation rate (only for receiving provinces). We also find that the reaction to horizontal competition is stronger in the provinces that do not receive equalisation transfers.     

From the global income tax to the dual income tax: Recent tax reforms in the Nordic countries

The paper discusses the recent drive toward a system of dual income taxation (DIT) in the Nordic countries. The pure version of this system combines progressive taxation of labor and transfer incomes with a proportional tax on income from capital at a level equal to the corporate income tax rate. The paper considers the motives for the introduction of this new income tax system, ranging from abstract theoretical arguments to very pragmatic considerations. While the Nordic DIT system violates the principles of the conventional personal income tax, it is argued that it may in fact be more in line with the philosophy of a true Haig-Simons comprehensive income tax. It is also suggested that the DIT system may cause fewer distortions to resource allocation than the conventional income tax. On the debit side, the paper points out several practical problems of taxing income from small enterprises under the differentiated income tax.     

Corporate tax revenues in OECD countries

This paper studies variation among OECD countries in the size of corporate income tax revenues relative to GDP over the time period 1979–2002. A decomposition explains such variation as a function of the statutory tax rate, the breadth of the tax base, corporate profitability, and the share of the corporate sector in GDP. Empirical results indicate a parabolic relationship between tax rates and revenues, implying a revenue-maximizing corporate income tax rate of 33% for the whole sample. This revenue-maximizing rate is found to decrease as economies are smaller and more integrated with the world economy. JEL Classification H25, H87     

中国的经济增长、需求约束与税收结构

在我国目前的经济增长中,出现了投资需求过热而消费需求不足的结构性失衡状况。为此,可以把税收结构引入汉森-萨缪尔森模型,来研究税收结构对投资和消费的影响。通过实证研究发现,在税收结构中,流转税(间接税)比重的增加对投资增长有激励作用,而对边际消费倾向没有显著影响;所得税和其他税(代表了直接税)比重的增加,有利于抑制投资和过快的经济增长,相反,可以提高边际消费倾向,从而促进消费。     

Efficiency and the optimal direction of federal-state transfers

It seems to be widely believed that the case for centralizing revenue-raising is stronger than that for centralizing expenditure decisions, so that federal governments should typically make transfers to lower-level (state) governments. This paper argues, however, that pure efficiency considerations may plausibly point in exactly the opposite direction. This arises because of a vertical fiscal externality: the typical state may neglect the impact that its tax decisions have on the federal tax base. The optimal federal response is to internalize this distortion of state decisions by means of offsetting subsidy on the common tax base, the financing of which may plausibly require transfers from the states.     

The origin principle and the welfare gains from indirect tax harmonization

This paper establishes a parallelism between indirect tax harmonization when taxes are levied according to the destination principle and its counterpart when taxes are imposed on an origin basis. Using a simple two-country model of international trade it is argued that, under normal circumstances, indirect tax harmonization under the origin principle, considered as a movement of domestic taxes toward an appropriately designed average tax structure, is potentially Pareto improving. It is also shown that if the initial position is a Nash equilibrium, there are exceptional situations under which the above-mentioned reform may generate an actual Pareto improvement, so that both countries improve their welfare without any need for a compensating international transfer.     

Introduction: Fiscal Aspects of Evolving Federations

There has been a resurgence of interest, in many parts of the world, in problems of multilevel government finance. Recent and ongoing political and economic developments raise questions about the role of the nation, subnational governments, and supranational public authorities in the provision and financing of public-sector programs. This paper presents an overview of these developments that may assist in understanding some of the motivation behind the articles presented in this special issue and in appreciating some of their potential applications. The articles are briefly summarized, and some issues that remain on the agenda for future research are identified.     

Structuring a tax efficient international operation

International taxation is rapidly increasing in importance in the U.S. business environment. As a student preparing for a career in public accounting or industry, it is vital that you have familiarity with key international tax issues. In this case, you will participate in a detailed tax-planning exercise involving a multinational corporation that is restructuring its tax operations. In the process, you will be exposed to a wide-ranging array of real-world tax issues: tax theory, source of income, transfer pricing, foreign tax credits, the foreign earned income exclusion and Subpart F income. The case also incorporates questions designed to help you explore the financial accounting implications of tax planning. The case consists of three tax modules and each module emphasizes two to three specific tax issues. Two of the modules also contain a subset of tax-related financial accounting questions. To complete the case successfully, you will be required to understand basic international tax theory, to engage in the tax research process and to apply your theoretical knowledge in analyzing complex business scenarios.     

中印地方税制度比较分析

我国和印度的地方税①制存在明显的差异。印度的地方税制具有较强的法制性、完整性和自主性。本文认为,我国的地方税制改革可以借鉴印度的一些先进经验,把重点放在加速税收基本法的建设、增强地方政府征税的合法性、扩大地方税的覆盖范围、完善地方税税种体系和税制结构以及提高地方税收入占整个地方政府税收收入的比重上。     

Shareholder taxation and aggregate dividend payout: Evidence from the tax reform act of 1986

The effect of shareholder taxation on corporate dividend policy is a major controversy in financial economics. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 eliminated the statutory tax disadvantage of dividends versus long-term capital gains for individual shareholders. Using aggregate time series data I find evidence that corporate dividend payout has become more generous in the period after tax reform.     

依托增值税转型改革机遇促进中小企业发展

增值税转型改革于今年1月1日起在我国全面推开。本文选择作为经济发展中不可缺少的一部分-中小企业为研究对象,采用规范与实证相结合的分析方法,对增值税转型方案本身如何将不同行业的企业享受政策的差异性加以考虑、增值税转型后如何对待实行简易征收的小规模纳税人的税率问题、因增值税转型而对企业资金管理上产生的影响、过度投资对企业资金管理上的负面效应及风险控制等问题进行探讨。     

Efficiency effects of tax deductions for work-related expenses

This paper studies the efficiency effects of granting deductions for work-related expenses. It is shown that much depends on whether the expenses are required for increasing taxable income and on whether the expenses are social costs. Among the noteworthy results are the following. Expenses for commuting should be taxed rather than granted deduction, as the increasing effect of commuting on taxable income is doubtful. Deductions for private costs such as expenses for housework and child care may turn out to be allocationally neutral. If they are not neutral, however, the efficient degree of deduction depends on relative labor supply elasticities. JEL Classification H21 · H24     

增值税转型对信息技术业机器设备投资的激励效应研究

信息技术代表先进生产力的发展方向。根据资本结构的不同将信息技术类企业细分为信息技术业制造类企业和服务类企业,利用转型前后相关数据,通过多元线性回归法分析表明：我国增值税转型有利于促进信息技术类企业增加机器设备类固定资产投资,且对资本构成相对高的信息技术业制造类企业的激励效应高于服务类企业。