赡养系数与个人所得税税制改革

文章在估算城镇居民收入分布函数的基础上,对考虑家庭赡养系数的个人所得税税制改革的政策效果进行了模拟分析。结果发现,在保证个人所得税总税收收入基本不变的前提下,在扣除标准中考虑赡养系数后,中低收入家庭的所得税负担有所减轻,高收入家庭的税收负担相应加重;相当一部分中等收入家庭(占总人口11.44%)的边际税率下降了5个百分点,这对刺激就业有着积极的影响。因此,考虑赡养系数能够使个人所得税更好地体现税收公平并发挥调节收入分配的职能。     

中国个人所得税的性质及其效果分析

以工资薪金税收为主体的个人所得税是一种消费者税。由于起征额的存在,个人所得税并不是一种完全的所得税,而是一种个人收入调节税。基于消费者税的理论基础,提出了关于中国代表性居民纳税人的理论平均税负的一个简单模型,以及一个关于中国个人所得税对全部税收的贡献率的理论计算公式。中国个人所得税改革应着眼于如何改善工薪所得税的累进性,增强税收的收入再分配职能,相对提高低收入劳动者的实际报酬。为此,应将个人所得税易名为个人收入调节税,减少税率档次,提高免征额。     

PROGRESSIVITY AND REDISTRIBUTION IN NON‐REVENUE NEUTRAL TAX REFORMS: THE LEVEL AND DISTANCE EFFECTS

Kakwani and Reynolds–Smolensky indices are used in the literature to measure the progressivity and redistributive capacity of taxes. These indices may, however, show some limits when used to make normative assessments about non‐revenue neutral tax reforms. Two approaches have traditionally been taken to overcome this problem. The first of these consists of comparing after‐tax income distributions through generalized Lorenz (concentration) curves. The second approach is based on the decomposition of changes in the Reynolds–Smolensky index into changes in the average tax rate and variations in progressivity. Nonetheless, this decomposition between the average tax rate and progressivity may be further exploited to obtain some information that can be relevant to assess tax reforms. The main aim of this study is to draw up some indicators that can be useful to quantify the effects of non‐revenue neutral tax reforms. These indicators are used to investigate the last personal income tax reforms that have taken place in Spain.     

Shifting Taxes from Labor to Consumption: More Employment and more Inequality?

This paper investigates the effect of shifting taxes from labor income to consumption on labor supply and the distribution of income in Germany. We simulate stepwise increases in the value‐added tax (VAT) rate, which are compensated by revenue‐neutral reductions in income‐related taxes. We differentiate between the personal income tax (PIT) and social security contributions (SSC). Based on a dual data base and a microsimulation model of household labor supply behavior, we find a regressive impact of such a tax shift in the short run. When accounting for labor supply adjustments, the adverse distributional impact persists for PIT reductions, while the overall effects on inequality and progressivity become lower when payroll taxes are reduced. This is partly due to increases in aggregate labor supply, resulting from higher work incentives.     

Effective Taxation of Top Incomes in Germany

We exploit a dataset that includes the individual tax returns of all taxpayers in the top percentile of the income distribution in Germany to pin down the effective income taxation of households with very high incomes. Taking tax base erosion into account, we find that the top percentile of the income distribution pays an effective average tax rate of 30.5% and contributes more than a quarter of total income tax revenue. Within the top percentile, the effective average tax rate is first increasing, then decreasing, with income. Since the 1990s, effective average tax rates for the German super‐rich have fallen by about a third, with major reductions occurring in the wake of the personal income tax reform of 2001–05. As a result, the concentration of net incomes at the very top of the distribution has strongly increased in Germany.     

Welfare Effects of National Taxes in an Economy with Regions

The present paper illustrates that changes in national commodity and income tax rates will affect the location choices of mobile factors of production within an economy with regions as well as the total supply of these factors to the economy. It is also argued that revenue (expenditure) neutral changes in the tax mix, for example, an increase in the commodity tax combined with a decrease in the income tax rate, will affect the domestic distribution of mobile factors, their supply to the economy and social welfare. In other words, revenue neutrality should not be used as a guide to the welfare effects of tax mix changes.     

The Laffer curve in schedular multi-rate income taxes with non-genuine allowances: An application to Spain

This paper models the connection between tax revenue and marginal tax rates in modern personal income taxes. In so doing, new analytical expressions for the elasticity of tax revenue to tax rates are derived taking into account global and schedular income taxes in the presence of non-standard allowances. Based on these new analytical elasticities the implicit Laffer curve is characterised and explored in detail. Calculations are performed for the individual taxpayer and the aggregate population. When applied to microdata, the model permits us to locate individually the position of every taxpayer on the entire range of the Laffer curve as well as to characterise the “representative” aggregate Laffer curve. The utility of the model to forecast revenue is illustrated by applying it to Spanish personal income tax. The model confirms that the Laffer curve is essentially an intrinsic individual matter although a virtual aggregate Laffer curve for the whole population can be inferred.     

Old‐age Social Security versus Forward Intergenerational Public Goods Provision

This paper introduces an overlapping‐generations model with earnings heterogeneity and borrowing constraints. The labour income tax and the allocation of tax revenue between social security and forward intergenerational public goods are determined in a bidimensional majoritarian voting game played by successive generations. The political equilibrium is characterized by an ends‐against‐the‐middle equilibrium where low‐income and high‐income individuals form a coalition in favour of a lower tax rate and less social security while middle‐income individuals favour a higher tax rate and greater social security. Government spending then shifts from social security to public goods provision if higher wage inequality is associated with a borrowing constraint and a high elasticity of marginal utility of youth consumption.     

Time-consistent taxation in a dynastic family model with human and physical capital and a balanced government budget

Abstract .  This paper analyzes optimal, time consistent taxation in a dynastic family model with human and physical capital and with a balanced government budget. When tax revenue is used for publicly provided consumption or lump-sum transfers, leisure would be higher than its social optimum. Pareto optimal taxation requires taxing capital income more heavily than labour income and subsidizing investment at the same rate of the tax. Also, it requires either subsidizing labour at the same rate as a consumption tax or subsidizing consumption at the same rate as a labour income tax, and hence it is not a practical guide to policy. Further, a consumption tax, or equivalently a uniform income tax with investment subsidies at the same rate, can be improved on by taxing capital income more heavily than labour income.     

生态赤字税：绿色发展与税制改革*

本文在量化生态占用并评估生态价值基础上,提出运用税收实现超额生态占用价值补偿的税收方案,也称生态赤字税。根据税制生态化的改革思路,本文运用CGE模型分析了征收生态赤字税和降低所得税的政策效应。本文研究发现：(1)在各税收方案中,生态赤字减少,就业增加,支持双重红利假说,全行业中间投入减少相对总产出减少更大,名义GDP保持增长;(2)实际GDP在生态赤字税基础上仅减少企业所得税的方案中下降,同时减少个人所得税则能实现增长,此时减税额低于生态赤字税收入;(3)在开征生态赤字税同时,降低个人所得税在保持经济增长方面较好,降低企业所得税在减少生态赤字方面较好,但降低企业所得税所减少的生态赤字价值低于降低个人所得税时劳动和资本增加值的提高。本文建议在完善生态占用核算基础上开征生态赤字税,并减轻所得税,促进经济增长由资源环境消耗转向劳动和资本投入的绿色发展。     

Pension and child care policies with endogenous fertility

This paper presents an examination of effects of a child allowance on fertility under a pay-as-you-go pension system. In these analyses, the child allowance is financed by taxation of two kinds: an income tax and a consumption tax. Comparative static analyses show that a child allowance financed by income tax revenues can always raise fertility. Similarly with income tax, a child allowance financed by consumption tax can always raise fertility. Furthermore, our paper presents examination of optimal child allowance and transfer for older people.     

The impact of corporate and personal income taxes on the location of firms and on employment: some panel evidence for the Swiss cantons

The impact of corporate income taxes on location decisions of firms is widely debated in the tax competition literature. Tax rate differences across jurisdictions may lead to distortions of firms’ investment decisions. Empirical evidence on tax-induced relocation and subsequent economic development in the US and Europe is still inconclusive. Much the same applies to Switzerland. While there is some evidence on personal income tax competition between Swiss cantons, evidence on the impact of intercantonal corporate income tax differences on the location of business within Switzerland is missing. In this paper, we present econometric evidence on the influence of corporate and personal income taxes on the regional distribution of firms in 1981 and 1991 and on cantonal employment using a panel data set of the 26 Swiss cantons from 1985 to 1997. The results show that corporate and personal income taxes deter firms to locate in a canton and subsequently reduce cantonal employment.     

Redistribution and the marginal cost of public funds

Discussions of the marginal cost of public funds with distortionary taxation are often cast in the framework of a one-consumer economy, while the main justification of distortionary taxes is that they are needed for redistribution. This paper analyzes the issue in a model with heterogeneous consumers and a linear income tax, focusing on the tradeoff between labour market distortions and the redistribution from high-wage to low-wage workers. In an optimal tax system the MCF will be the same for all sources of funds and under certain assumptions less than one. Without optimality the MCF will in general differ between different sources of finance.     

个人所得税制度的收入分配效应——基于微观模拟的研究途径

本文提供了一个微观模拟模型,用于分析我国个人所得税制度的收入分配效应.模型通过收入调整、收入时化和税收制度实施更新微观个体的收入状态,通过对微观个体收入状态的统计估算税收制度的收入分配效应.应用吉林省城镇居民的微观数据,我们对个人所得税制度的收入分配效应进行了模拟.模拟结果表明:个人所得税制度的谩计基本满足居民之间和地区之间税负公平原则;尽管目前个人所得税制度的实施没有起到明显降低城镇居民收入差距的效果,但随着居民收入水平的持续增长和收入差距的不断扩大,税收制度调控居民收入分配的能力将不断增强.     

省级财政收入竞争的成因分析

省级财政收入竞争是财政分权制度下的必然结果，其中不完善的分税制是省级财政收入竞争的制度基础；不科学的税收计划是省级财政收入竞争的促进因素；超税收的财政需求是省级财政收入竞争的现实基础；不规范的自由裁量权是省级财政收入竞争的重要原因。     

Optimal nonlinear income taxation with productive government expenditure

This paper develops an endogenous growth model with a production externality and nonlinear income taxation, and uses it to examine how the fiscal authority devises its nonlinear tax structure from the viewpoint of welfare maximization. It is found that, in the Barro (1990) model, Pareto optimality can be achieved if both policy instruments for the tax scalar and the extent of the tax progressivity/regressivity are set optimally.     

Income splitting among the self-employed

Abstract .  Under individual taxation with progressive marginal tax rates, households in which the distribution of income is unequal benefit from attributing income to the lower income household member. Self-employment provides greater potential to 'split' income in this way because of the absence of a third party reporting income. Using the Canadian experience as a case study, this paper develops a unique estimator of the incidence of illegal income splitting among self-employed couples. The results suggest that the incidence of income splitting among self-employed men in Canada is non-trivial; but no evidence is found that self-employed women attribute income to their spouses.     

Federalism and horizontal equity across Switzerland and Germany: a new rationale for a decentralized fiscal structure

Higher wages in agglomerations often do not reflect an increase in purchasing power, because a high percentage of the wage increase has to be spend on housing. Thus, after housing is considered taxpayers may have identical disposable incomes, although gross as well as after-tax income may differ. This unequal treatment of taxpayers is due to the taxation of nominal incomes. If tax systems taxed income based on regionally adjusted purchasing power, horizontal equity would be assured. Since this is an unfeasible option, the differences could be corrected by allowing a deduction on housing costs. Given the large revenue losses, it seems unlikely that governments in OECD countries move to a system where rents are deductible in determining taxable income. Another alternative—taxation of potentially achievable income—is unfeasible due to political opposition. A final and less costly alternative is fiscal federalism. Granting autonomy to the lower levels of the government offers local governments the power to design the tax system in a way that reflects differences in living costs. Although this option does not necessarily imply that governments effectively design the tax schedule in that way, a comparison of Germany and Switzerland shows that governments are aware of these differences across regions. The paper concludes that granting tax autonomy to the lower tiers in Germany would make many citizens, especially in the Southern part, better off and would promote horizontal equity among German taxpayers.     

Taxing Super

Australia's taxation arrangements for retirement saving are among the most complicated in the world. It is almost unique in applying taxat all three possible points in the retirement saving cycle: contributions, earnings and benefits. Starting from the proposition that the 'best' pension tax is to tax benefits under the personal income tax, this paper proposes a 'withholding tax' arrangement which would have impacts on individual contributors equivalent to a benefit tax, while altering the time profile of tax collections to address cash-flow concerns on the part of the revenue authorities. Simulations are presented to show that individual contributors benefit from the proposed reform, and that equity across contributors in different wage bands is broadly maintained.     

THE BUILT-IN FLEXIBILITY OF INCOME AND CONSUMPTION TAXES IN NEW ZEALAND

This paper provides estimates of individual and aggregate revenue elasticities of income and consumption taxes in New Zealand, based on the 2001 tax structure and expenditure patterns. Using analytical expressions for revenue elasticities at the individual and aggregate levels, together with a simulated income distribution, values for New Zealand were obtained. Results using equi-proportional income changes suggest that the aggregate income and consumption tax revenue elasticities are both fairly constant as mean income increases, at around 1.3 and 0.95 respectively. This latter estimate assumes that increases in disposable income are accompanied by approximately proportional increases in total expenditure. If there is a tendency for the savings proportion to increase as disposable income increases, a somewhat lower total consumption tax revenue elasticity, of around 0.9, is obtained for 2001 income levels. However, non-equiproportional income changes are more realistic. Allowing for regression towards the geometric mean income reduces these elasticities, giving an elasticity for income and consumption taxes combined that is only slightly above unity. Examination of the tax-share weighted expenditure elasticities for various goods also revealed that, despite the adoption of a broad based GST at a uniform rate in New Zealand, the persistence of various excises has an important effect on the overall consumption tax revenue elasticity, especially for individuals at relatively low income levels.