Incentives and Information Exchange in International Taxation

The exchange of taxpayer-specific information between national tax authorities has recently emerged as a key and controversial topic in international tax policy discussions, most notably with the OECD's harmful tax practices project and the EU's savings tax initiative. This paper analyzes the effects of information exchange and withholding taxes, recognizing that countries which agree to exchange information do not forfeit the ability to levy withholding taxes, and also focusing in particular on the effects of innovative revenue-sharing arrangements. Amongst the findings are that: (i) the transfer of withholding tax receipts to the residence country, as planned in the European Union, has no effect on equilibrium tax rates, but acts purely as a lump-sum transfer; (ii) in contrast, allocating some of the revenue from information exchange to the source country—counter to usual practice (though no less so than the EU agreement)—would have adverse strategic effects on total revenue; (iii) nevertheless, any withholding tax regime is Pareto dominated by information exchange combined with appropriate revenue sharing; and, in particular, (iv) sharing of the additional revenues raised from information provided, while efficiency-reducing, could be in the interests of large countries as a means of persuading small countries to provide that information voluntarily. JEL Code: H77, H87, F42     

税收缺口问题研究述评

对税收流失的治理是提高税收收入的重要保证。税收缺口反映了税收流失的相对规模。从国外相关实证研究结果看,地下经济、纳税习俗及征管效率对税收缺口的大小具有非常重要的影响。我国的税收流失与这三个因素都具有非常密切的联系,应结合我国的实际情况,对上述三个因素对我国税收缺口的影响进行深入研究。     

税收增速减缓与地方税收竞争——基于省际面板数据的考察

本文通过理论分析明确了地方政府税收竞争对税收增长的影响机制。以此为基础,利用我国省际面板数据所做的实证研究显示,地方政府的税收竞争强度每提高0.01,全部税收、中央税收征收额和地方税收征收额分别下降0.64、0.71、0.60个百分点。为了进一步缓解地方政府经济增长激励与维护税法严肃性之间的矛盾,中央政府应逐步提高财产税收入所占的比重,将地方政府的税收竞争主要限制在财产税范围内。     

Slowing Fossil Fuel Extraction: A Role for Taxation of Exports,Capital Gains and Interest Income

This paper develops a model of a growing open economy rich in non‐renewable resources, the extraction of which negatively impacts domestic productivity and whose sector competes with final production for capital. We analyse how tax rates on capital gains and interest income and the time trend of an export revenue tax rate could slow the extraction of resources for export. We find that taxing capital gains and interest income at the same rate and setting an export revenue tax rate to decline at the marginal social cost of extraction would defer extraction. An export revenue tax rate need not fall over time to curb depletion if capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than interest income, which is second best to taxing asset returns at the same rate when the resources sector competes for capital.     

Tax Evasion and Auditing in a Federal Economy

This paper analyzes the relation between tax auditing and fiscal equalization in the context of fiscal competition. We incorporate a model of tax evasion by firms into a standard tax competition framework where regional governments use their audit rates as a strategic instrument to engage in fiscal competition. We compare the region’s choice of audit policies for three different cases: A scenario of unconfined competition without interregional transfers, a scenario with a gross revenue equalization (GRS) scheme and finally, a scenario with net revenue sharing (NRS), where not only the revenues from taxation but also the regions auditing costs are shared. Without regional transfers, fiscal competition leads to audit rates which are inefficiently low for revenue-maximizing governments. While in general GRS aggravates the inefficiency, NRS makes the decentralized choice of auditing policies more efficient.JEL Code: H26, H71, H77     

Withholding tax rates on dividends: symmetries versus asymmetries or single- versus multi-rated double tax treaties

Out of all double tax treaties (DTTs) in force in 2012, around 41% are symmetric (single-rated) and 59% are asymmetric (multi-rated), i.e., they prescribe different dividend withholding tax rates depending on the foreign investor’s ownership fraction. The paper investigates the reasons for this phenomenon, namely why some countries in their DTTs prefer homogenous withholding tax rates over separate rates for participation and portfolio dividends. In a theoretical model, I demonstrate why home countries may have an interest in a high withholding tax rate in the host country, even though they do not receive the revenue from this tax. Further, I find confirming evidence that a reason for having multi-rated withholding taxes on dividends is an existing spatial dependence on the rates of the countries’ peers that may be a driving factor for setting multi-rated taxes. Finally, I confirm that the spread itself (i.e., the difference between the portfolio and participation dividends negotiated in the tax treaty) is also affected by the peer countries.

     

Tax Clientele Effects in the Term Structure of UK Interest Rates

This paper tests for tax clientele effects in the term structure of UK interest rates. Five empirical models of the term structure of interest rates, incorporating tax effects, are estimated with daily data covering the period 31 March, 1995 to 3 August, 1995. In May 1995, the British government announced its intention to eliminate the tax exemption on capital gains from government bonds, but subsequently in July 1995 backtracked on some of its initial proposals. This period therefore forms the basis of a crude natural experiment in the sense that it provides an opportunity to examine tax clientele effects 'before' and 'after' an event which should have levelled greatly the taxing of government bonds. The empirical analysis suggests large tax clientele effects. However, there is little evidence of tax-specific term structures of interest rates.     

税收增长与经济增长关系的实证分析

运用回归分析方法对我国税收增长与经济增长的关系进行实证分析的结果表明:我国税收增长处于合理增长范围;税收增长与经济增长关系基本协调;税收收入增长的强劲势头保持一段时期是没有问题的;税收收入必将进入与GDP增速协调发展的轨道。     

Prospects for Co-ordination of Corporate Taxation and the Taxation of Interest Income in the EU

This paper evaluates the recent proposals for a co-ordinated capital tax policy in the European Union, focusing on an EU-wide minimum withholding tax on interest income and alternative ways to increase the effective tax rate on corporate profits. The analysis draws on current theoretical and empirical research and views the recent capital tax reforms undertaken by individual member countries as rational adjustments to changing conditions in capital markets. Special emphasis is placed on the constraints for EU tax policy imposed by the possibility of shifting capital income to third countries. The paper concludes that some aggregate efficiency gains can be expected from the EU co-ordination proposals, but additional tax collections will be limited largely to the group of small savers while highly mobile large-scale investors are likely to avoid the EU tax.     

我国税收征管制度变迁的路径选择——基于税收征纳交易费用的分析

与发达国家相比,我国征税费用过高;不同地区间税收征收成本差别较大;征税费用与纳税费用的比例不平衡并经常相互转化;由"寻租"、"设租"导致的税款流失严重。这些现象说明,我国的税收征蚋交易费用还不够合理。建议通过推进征纳系统的信息化、组织结构的扁平化、征税流程的精细化等有效措施,来实现我国以节约税收征纳交易费用为导向的税收征管制度变迁。     

我国间接税与收入分配公平关系的实证分析

税收理论认为间接税具有累退性,有利于征管效率但不利于社会公平。采用1994～2009年时间序列数据,计算出库兹涅茨比率以衡量居民收入分配差距,通过对增值税、消费税、营业税、资源税、城建税、全部间接税对库兹涅茨比率影响的实证研究表明,目前我国以增值税为代表的间接税占税收总收入的比重过高,不利于发挥税收调节收入分配差距的作用,需要在今后逐步加以调整;同时间接税中的消费税有一定的缩小我国居民收入分配差距的作用,可以适当加以规范,以发挥其促进社会公平的作用。     

Corporate tax policy and incorporation in the EU

In Europe, declining corporate tax rates have come along with rising tax-to-GDP ratios. This paper explores to what extent income shifting from the personal to the corporate tax base can explain these diverging developments. We exploit a panel of European data on legal form of business to analyze income shifting via incorporation. The results suggest that the effect is significant and large. It implies that the revenue effects of lower corporate tax rates—possibly induced by tax competition—will partly show up in lower personal tax revenues rather than lower corporate tax revenues. Simulations suggest that between 12% and 21% of corporate tax revenue can be attributed to income shifting. Income shifting is found to have raised the corporate tax-to-GDP ratio by some 0.25% points since the early 1990s. This research was carried out while Ruud de Mooij was a visiting fellow at DG ECFIN in October 2006. The views expressed in this Article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the European Commission.     

The “flat tax(es)”: principles and experience

This paper reviews experience with the ‘flat taxes’ that have been adopted in many countries in recent years. It stresses that they differ fundamentally, and that empirical evidence on their effects is very limited. This precludes simple generalization, but several lessons emerge: there is no sign of Laffer-type behavioral responses generating revenue increases from the tax cut elements of these reforms; their impact on compliance is theoretically ambiguous, but there is evidence for Russia that compliance did improve; the distributional effects of the flat taxes are not unambiguously regressive, and in some cases, they may have increased progressivity (including through the impact on compliance); adoption of the flat tax has not resolved common challenges in taxing capital income; and it may have strengthened, not weakened, the automatic stabilizers. A key reason for adoption of the flat tax seems to have been to signal a fundamental shift toward a market-oriented policy regime. Looking forward, as the value of the signal diminishes and familiar political economy forces reassert themselves, the question is not so much whether more countries will adopt a flat tax as whether those that have will move away from it.      

我国区域税负公平探析——以税收与税源的关系为研究视角

理论上,一个地区有多大规模的税源就应该收到多少税,但在现实中,由于税收体制设计和生产经营活动的复杂性,普遍存在着税收与税源相背离的现象。这违背了税收与税源相一致的原则,造成了区域间财力的不平衡,并进一步加重了西部地区的税收负担。为此,建议将“税收收入归属”列入税制要素,并从立法层面确立税收与税源的一致性原则;在完善相关理论的基础上,实践中审慎灵活操作,以促进东中西部之间的实际税负趋于一致。     

Progression and revenue effects of income tax reform

Usually, only initial revenue effects of personal income tax reforms are considered. However, a tax reform characterized by base broadening in exchange for rate reduction can reduce the income elasticity of tax revenue. In that case, the increase in revenue after income growth will be relatively smaller: the tax reform has a negative effect on revenue in the second period. Using the microtax model of the Central Planning Bureau we simulated the effects of the Dutch Oort reform 1990 on revenue elasticities and, consequently, on tax revenue. The income tax revenue elasticity declined by 17 percent which caused an additional revenue loss of 0.6 percent in 1990, rising to 3.8 percent in 1993.     

我国地方税系的重构——基于税收分布视角

地方税系重构需要在考虑地方税收均衡程度的基础上进行,所以,理清税收在各地的分布状况及其差异系数非常关键.分析表明,地方税收的差异系数决定于进入地方税系的税种类别及其在地方税收中的比重.进一步,在中央与地方税收格局不变的限定下,通过模拟计算出地方税系重构八种情景下的地方税收差异系数.同时,基于模拟结果与各种因素的权衡,认为我国地方税系重构不能仅简单依赖增值税分享比例向地方政府的倾斜来实现,而是需要将车辆购置税与部分消费税划归地方政府,之后再以增值税分享比例的调整来稳定地方税收规模.     

Tax Systems in the World: An Empirical Investigation into the Importance of Tax Bases, Administration Costs, Scale and Political Regime

We study the structure of taxation in a sample of 100 democratic and nondemocratic regimes over three time periods. The results provide strong support for several regularities in the world as a whole, specifically (1) scale effect: utilization of each tax source increases as the government expands, (2) base effect: tax systems rely more heavily on relatively larger tax bases, and (3) administrative cost effect: lower costs of administration lead to increased reliance on the corresponding revenue source. We also investigate the role of political regime and find that democracies rely substantially more on other income taxation, possibly because this tax source requires a higher degree of voluntary compliance. JEL Code: H2, D72, D78, E31, E51, F13, P35     

证券交易税对证券市场和财政收入的影响分析

各国和地区设置证券交易税的政策目标在于降低股票价格的不稳定性和增加政府的财政收入。为检验上述政策目标能否实现,本文对美国、瑞典、英国、日本、韩国、中国香港、中国台湾几个重要的证券市场进行了分析,得出结论:各国和地区设置证券交易税的政策目标很难实现。     

税收收入中性约束下最优环境税率研究

通过构建完全垄断企业与政府的两阶段博弈模型,对政府如何制定最优环境税率,实现税收收入中性约束下社会福利最大化及企业利润最大化问题进行了分析。研究发现：在一定的条件下,环境税率和其他税率越高,企业产出水平和排污量越低;当政府的税收收入较少时,环境税率与排污的边际损害程度呈现倒 U 型;而当政府税收收入较高时,环境税率随着排污的边际损害程度的提高而增加。据此提出环境税改革的建议：一是采取有差别的环境税率;二是将污染物排放的边际损害控制在一定范围内;三是适时调整环境税税率,并同时辅之以相对应的配套改革措施。     

Indirect Taxation in Greece: Evaluation and Possible Reform

The paper assesses the distributional and efficiency/disincentive aspects of the Greek indirect tax system, which provides 60% of total tax revenue. The marginal welfare costs of broad commodity groups were computed to identify welfare-improving directions of reform. The disincentive effects were estimated from marginal indirect tax rates using Household Expenditure Survey data. The indirect tax structure is shown to be unnecessarily complicated and inefficient, without achieving any redistributive goals. The UK indirect tax structure was shown to be simpler, more equitable and more efficient to implement and administer when simulated on Greek consumers.