Administrative efficiency

2018 ◽  
pp. 69-80
Author(s):  
Malcolm Torry
Keyword(s):  
Income Tax ◽  
Tax Structure ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Insurance Benefits ◽  
Good Basis ◽  
Administrative Efficiency ◽  
National Insurance ◽  
Child Benefit

This chapter discusses the ways in which a Citizen's Basic Income would translate into a benefits system that is coherent, simple to administer, and avoids error and fraud compared to means-tested benefits. It argues that the current tax and benefits structure does not fit together, with different sets of rules for means-tested benefits, National Insurance benefits, Income Tax, National Insurance Contributions, and universal benefits such as Child Benefit. The current tax and benefits structure is also not simple to administer, and the chapter elaborates on why the regulations for a Citizen's Basic Income would not cause problems for the administration of any other parts of the system, and therefore would make a good basis for a future benefits and tax structure. Finally, it explains why and how a Citizen's Basic Income would reduce administrative error, fraud and criminalisation.

Alternatives to a Citizen’s Basic Income

2018 ◽  
pp. 181-192
Author(s):  
Malcolm Torry
Keyword(s):  
Income Tax ◽  
Tax Credits ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Insurance Benefits ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
Negative Income ◽  
Income Approach ◽  
Negative Income Tax ◽  
Policy Proposals

This chapter examines three policy proposals with characteristics similar to those of a Citizen's Basic Income: Negative Income Tax, genuine Tax Credits and Participation Income. It first considers the Tax Credits scheme proposed by the UK's Conservative government in 1972, and which was close to a genuine Tax Credits scheme before discussing Negative Income Tax and the problems that it entails. It then describes Negative Income Tax experiments with interesting outcomes that have clear implications for the current debate on the Citizen's Basic Income approach to tax and benefits reform. It also looks at Participation Income and the issues that it raises before concluding with an analysis of the outcomes that would be created by an increase in the value of National Insurance Benefits compared to the outcomes of a Citizen's Basic Income.

Options for implementation

2018 ◽  
pp. 113-126
Author(s):  
Malcolm Torry
Keyword(s):  
Income Tax ◽  
The State ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
The Third ◽  
National Insurance ◽  
Pension Age ◽  
State Pension ◽  
Roll Out ◽  
Additional Option

This chapter considers four different methods for implementing a Citizen's Basic Income. The first is ‘all in one go’, which abolishes means-tested benefits. The second is ‘all in one go’, but retains means-tested benefits. The third option is gradual roll-out, in which Child Benefit would no longer be payable beyond the sixteenth birthday; that is, the sixteen-year-olds would receive no Income Tax Personal Allowance. The last option involves inviting volunteers among the pre-retired, between the age of sixty and the state pension age. The chapter evaluates each of these methods, taking into account their advantages and disadvantages, and describes an implementation scenario based on the third method. It concludes by proposing an additional option: introducing a very small Citizen's Basic Income that will rise slowly as the rates and thresholds for Income Tax and National Insurance Contributions as well as means-tested benefits adapt.

Another Low Road to Basic Income? Mapping a Pragmatic Model for Adopting a Basic Income in Canada

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracy A Smith-Carrier ◽  
Steven Green
Keyword(s):  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Cash Transfers ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfers ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Income Security ◽  
Disadvantaged Groups ◽  
Negative Income ◽  
Negative Income Tax

AbstractDrawing from both theoretical and empirical research, the literature on basic income (BI) is now voluminous, pronouncing both its merits and its limitations. Burgeoning research documents the impacts of un/conditional cash transfers and negative income tax programs, with many studies highlighting the effectiveness of these programs in reducing poverty, and improving a host of social, economic and health outcomes. We consider possible avenues for BI architecture to be adopted within Canada’s existing constellation of income security programs, to the benefit of disadvantaged groups in society. Identifying key federal and provincial (i.e., Ontario) transfer and tax benefit programs, we highlight which programs might best be maintained or converted to a BI. While opponents decry the (alleged) exorbitant costs of BI schemes, we suggest that the existing approach not only produces an ineffective system—which actually engenders poverty and the health and social problems that accompany it—but an excessively costly one.

scholarly journals THE COST OF NEGATIVE INCOME TAX AS A FISCAL MEASURE TO TACKLE POVERTY IN NORTH MACEDONIA

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivana Velkovska
Keyword(s):  
Income Tax ◽  
Aggregate Demand ◽  
Household Consumption ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
Negative Income ◽  
The World ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Negative Income Tax

This paper makes an effort to evaluate the cost of negative income tax as a fiscal measure aiming to tackle the persistent high poverty rate in Macedonia. Poverty, income inequality and unemployment are expected to rise all around the world due to the pandemic corona virus outbreak and the subsequent economic crisis. Governments around the world have already implemented measures similar to universal basic income with the purpose of increasing household consumption and stimulating aggregate demand but also to mitigate the devastating effects that the recent unfavorable economic developments have on the citizens living in poverty or are at the risk of poverty. However, shrinking fiscal spaces of small economies could be an obstacle to implement such policies. Compared to universal basic income, negative income tax is a less costly policy option that targets the population living in poverty instead of providing payments to everyone regardless of their income. The analysis based on the available data is indicating that implementing such policy would cost as much as 9.7 billion MKD per year, which is 4% of the planned state budget revenues for Y2020, 8% of the planned social transfers for Y2020 and 29% of the funds that the state has made available for tackling the COVID 19 crisis so far. In addition, the negative income tax could trigger various positive effects on the economy. Since poor people spend almost all of their income, it could be expected that implementing negative income tax would rise household consumption. According to the empirical analysis in this paper, household consumption is in highest correlation to GDP growth in Macedonia compared to the other explanatory variables (government consumption, investments, import and export).

‘The Pragmatist’s Solution to Poverty’

2019 ◽  
pp. 125-144
Author(s):  
Peter Sloman
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
Tax Credits ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
British Government ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
System P ◽  
Low Income Families ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Negative Income Tax

The ‘rediscovery of poverty’ prompted a wide-ranging debate over how the British government could best support low-income families. One radical response came from Edward Heath’s Conservative government, which published plans to replace the whole system of personal tax allowances with refundable tax credits—the closest any British government has come to introducing a Universal Basic Income. This chapter examines the origins of the Tax Credit Scheme in 1971–2, which was devised by special adviser Arthur Cockfield in response to the rising cost of tax administration and the difficulty of establishing a selective Negative Income Tax in Britain. As the plans took shape, however, the cost of introducing the reforms on a no-losers basis became a source of growing concern within government. Indeed, Treasury officials were relieved when Labour’s victory in the February 1974 election made it possible to jettison the scheme and focus on simplifying and computerizing the PAYE system.

Revenue

2020 ◽  
pp. 225-260
Author(s):  
Richard B. Collins ◽  
Dale A. Oesterle ◽  
Lawrence Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Public Debt ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
The State ◽  
Property Taxes ◽  
Tax Structure ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
State Income Tax ◽  
State Income ◽  
Public Revenue ◽  
The Many

This chapter highlights Article X of the Colorado Constitution, dealing with revenue. It is one of the constitution’s most distinctive sections Detailed provisions lay out the state’s tax structure. Sections 3, 3.5, and 15 are extensive rules for property taxes and their equalization across the state. Sections 4 and 5 exempt public, religious, and charitable property. Sections 17 and 19 authorize and define the state income tax. Section 20, the Taxpayers Bill of Rights or TABOR requires prior voter consent to new or increased taxes and public debt and for public revenue above specified formulas. It also forbids specified taxes. The chapter explains in detail the many legal disputes about interpretation of this section.

Interlude | Losing Sophia and Angela

2019 ◽  
pp. 161-162
Author(s):  
Rachel Humphris
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Living Room ◽  
Waiting Room ◽  
Large Glass ◽  
National Insurance ◽  
To Come ◽  
Child Benefit ◽  
The Doors

I meet Sophia walking down the street with Armando, who is now 13 months old. She is pushing a buggy which is also laden with shopping bags hanging over the handle bars. The buggy looks old and one of the wheels isn’t working properly. It seems to be taking all of her energy to push it through the residential backstreets. She tells me to come with her because she has moved to a different house. I offer to push the buggy but after I try and am completely unable to steer it along the pavement, I take the shopping bags and walk along beside her. She tells me she has been refused child benefit for the second time in London. She has indefinite leave to remain and has a national insurance number but she has been refused and she doesn’t know why. We arrive at the house and it seems very different from the other houses I have previously visited. It is not a small Victorian terrace but a bungalow. When we enter it has many different rooms with locks on the doors, separated by small dark corridors. There is a large kitchen and living room that are almost entirely empty and bare apart from three couches which look as though they have been made for an office waiting room. They have grey plastic cushions and wooden frames. There are large glass doors that open out to a large grassy back garden. There are two men at the bottom of the garden looking into cages full of dogs. Sophia tells me that this is the landlord who is breeding dogs. Armando has fallen asleep so Sophia takes me to her room and places Armando in a drawer on the floor that she is using for a cot. We return to the kitchen where she begins to unpack the shopping she has just bought and begins to make chips out of a large bag of potatoes....

scholarly journals The Structure of the Tax System Versus the Level of Taxation: An Evaluation of the 1986 Act

1992 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Gregory Ballentine
Keyword(s):  
Tax Policy ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
Tax Reform ◽  
High Income ◽  
Tax Structure ◽  
Corporate Tax ◽  
Policy Goal ◽  
Tax System ◽  
System Versus ◽  
The Future

In this paper, I assess the 1986 Tax Reform Act relative to the tax system that might have evolved over the several years following 1986 had that particular tax reform not been enacted. Had tax reform not been enacted, I believe that the pattern of steady tax increases, particularly corporate tax increases and tax increases on high-income individuals such as occurred in the 1982 and 1984 tax acts would have continued. I also believe that the 1986 Tax Reform Act introduced an income tax system that will be quite stable; broad changes, in particular changes that raise a large amount of income tax revenues, are unlikely for many years. So I am comparing the tax structure of the 1986 Tax Reform Act to a system that, in part, has an inferior structure, but that provides more revenues. Since I believe that the most important tax policy goal in 1986 and later should have been to raise revenues, not to revise the structure of the tax system, I believe that the 1986 Tax Reform Act was harmful. Tax reform not only did not raise revenues, it has made it more difficult to raise revenues in the future, without providing significant offsetting benefits.

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