Local Sales Tax Competition and the Effect on County Governments' Tax Rates and Tax Bases

2004 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
LeAnn Luna
Keyword(s):  
Local Governments ◽  
Predatory Behavior ◽  
Sales Tax ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Tax Base ◽  
County Governments ◽  
Tax Rate ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Long Run

Local governments can try to attract retail sales by keeping sales tax rates low and encouraging residents of other jurisdictions to cross-border shop. This predatory behavior must be balanced against the governments' desire to raise revenues. This study examines the extent to which local governments compete and attempt to limit cross-border shopping by changing sales tax rates. I estimate two equations, local sales tax rate and local sales tax base, in the short and long run. The local sales tax rate equation represents the county's tax policy choices and the sales tax base equation represents the demand function for the county businesses' taxable goods and services. The regression results show local governments do consider the sales tax rates of neighboring counties in setting their own rates in both the short and long run. The study also provides evidence that the sales tax rates of the home and competing counties will affect the sales tax base of the home county because shoppers will cross borders to take advantage of differences in tax rates between counties.

Do State Sales Taxes Crowd Out Local Option Sales Taxes?

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory S. Burge ◽  
Cynthia L. Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Local Governments ◽  
Sales Tax ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Tax Base ◽  
Tax Rate ◽  
Sales Taxes ◽  
Fiscal Externalities ◽  
Crowd Out ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Fiscal Spillovers

Abstract Currently, sales taxes are imposed at both the state and local levels in 37 US states. In these environments, vertical tax competition occurs as governments share a common sales tax base, and local jurisdictions have autonomy over sales tax rates. As cash-strapped states look to sales taxes for additional revenues, local governments may worry about potentially adverse revenue impacts, as consumers react to combined tax rate increases. This study examines state-municipal and county-municipal fiscal spillovers using an empirical approach that accounts for endogenous tax policy leadership and voter tax fatigue. Employing comprehensive longitudinal data from Oklahoma, we find that state tax hikes significantly crowd out future rate increases for the large group of jurisdictions that are designated as followers. Leader jurisdictions are not found to display crowd-out tendencies, a result that is consistent with recent work suggesting that leaders may be less influenced by vertical fiscal externalities than other jurisdictions.

Impact of the Sales Tax Rate on its Base: Evidence from a Small Town

1986 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Mikesell ◽  
C. Kurt Zorn
Keyword(s):  
Local Governments ◽  
Small Town ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
Sales Tax ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Small Cities ◽  
Tax Rate ◽  
Share Model ◽  
Short Run ◽  
The Impact

Local governments and businesses fear that increased local sales tax rates will induce losses to the local economy, even inducing losses so severe that no additional revenue will result from a higher tax rate. Earlier works by Fisher, Hamovitch, and Mikesell have examined sales loss in metropolitan areas, typically finding significant but not overwhelming effects. Those results do not address the question for small cities and typically are complicated by the expenditure effects resulting from the increased tax revenues. The present analysis uses unique data for a small town to examine the impact of a temporary sales tax rate increase with a retail sales share model. The evidence shows a significant but small sales impact that did not endure (a differential of 1% would lower city sales by 3.07%) and no impact on vendor location. The unfavorable rate differential produced a short-run effect, but not economic disaster.

Shopping for Lower Sales Tax Rates

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-250
Author(s):  
Scott R. Baker ◽  
Stephanie Johnson ◽  
Lorenz Kueng
Keyword(s):  
Shopping Behavior ◽  
Sales Tax ◽  
Fixed Costs ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Inventory Problem ◽  
Sales Taxes ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Short Run ◽  
State And Local

Using comprehensive high-frequency state and local sales tax data, we show that shopping behavior responds strongly to changes in sales tax rates. Even though sales taxes are not observed in posted prices and have a wide range of rates and exemptions, consumers adjust in many dimensions. They stock up on storable goods before taxes rise and increase online and cross-border shopping in both the short and long run. The difference between short- and long-run spending responses has important implications for the efficacy of using sales taxes for countercyclical policy and for the design of an optimal tax framework. Interestingly, households adjust spending similarly for both taxable and tax-exempt goods. We embed an inventory problem into a continuous-time consumption-savings model and demonstrate that this behavior is optimal in the presence of shopping trip fixed costs. The model successfully matches estimated short-run and long-run tax elasticities. We provide additional evidence in favor of this new shopping complementarity mechanism. (JEL E21, E32, G51, H21, H25, H71)

scholarly journals A Critical Appraisal of Goods and Services Tax in India

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rabinarayan Samantara
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Small Businesses ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Indian Market ◽  
Tax Base ◽  
Employment Opportunities ◽  
Mass Consumption ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
The Impact

The present paper attempts to make a critical appraisal of Goods and Services Tax (GST), implemented in India from 1st July, 2017. In addition to explaining the structure of GST in India as well as the tax rates under it, the present paper attempts to analyse the impact of GST on certain major industries or sectors within the Indian economy. Although GST has certain obvious advantages including exemptions and low compliance burden for small businesses, lower tax rates for mass consumption goods, increase in tax base and tax collections, etc., it is noteworthy, however, that GST has certain limitations as well. In spite of this, it must be accepted that GST has helped in ensuring a common Indian market through the elimination of multiplicity of taxes as well as ‘ tax on tax ‘. It is expected to accelerate economic growth, help generate more of employment opportunities, and lead to increased tax base as well as increased revenue generation

scholarly journals Are some taxes better for growth in Pakistan? A time series analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (10) ◽  
pp. 1439-1452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kashif Munir ◽  
Maryam Sultan
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Time Series ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Sales Tax ◽  
Tax Base ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Indirect Taxes ◽  
Short Run ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of taxes on economic growth in the long run as well as in the short run. Design/methodology/approach The study uses simple time series model, where real GDP is dependent variable and different forms of taxes are explanatory variables under ARDL framework from 1976 to 2014 at annual frequency for Pakistan. Findings Direct taxes have positive relation with economic growth in the long run. Sales tax, tax on international trade (tariffs) and other indirect taxes have positive impact on economic growth of Pakistan in the long run as well as in the short run. However, sales tax and other indirect taxes impact negatively on economic growth in the short run after one year because people realize decline in their real income. Practical implications Government should increase direct taxes by increasing tax base. Indirect taxes usually indicate negative impact after one and two years; therefore, government should decrease its reliance on indirect taxes. Government should promote tax awareness among the people which increase the tax morale of people and increase the tax base. Originality/value Taxes are disaggregated into direct and indirect taxes, while indirect taxes have been further disaggregated into excise duty, sales tax, surcharges, tax on international trade and other indirect taxes. This study provides useful insight for policy makers in designing taxes and their effect on growth.

scholarly journals An Estimable Model of Income Redistribution in a Federation: Musgrave Meets Oates

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 406-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Milligan ◽  
Michael Smart
Keyword(s):  
Tax Avoidance ◽  
Tax Base ◽  
Tax Rate ◽  
Personal Taxes ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
State Tax ◽  
Decentralization Reform ◽  
National Tax ◽  
Optimal Taxes ◽  
Personal Taxation

We develop a theory of cross-border income shifting in response to subnational personal taxation in a federation and examine its implications for the excess burden of personal taxes. We show how a properly chosen federal tax rate can offset the fiscal externality between states and facilitate decentralization, even in a heterogeneous federation where unitary taxation is suboptimal. Optimal taxes depend on the elasticities of national tax avoidance and of cross-state tax base shifting. We estimate these elasticities around a tax decentralization reform in Canada, finding both to be empirically relevant. We discuss the implications for optimal federalism. (JEL D31, H21, H23, H24, H26, H71, H77)

AN ITERATIVE PROCEDURE FOR OPTIMAL POLLUTION CONTROL UNDER INCOMPLETE INFORMATION

2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (03) ◽  
pp. 279-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
NICOLAS QUEROU
Keyword(s):  
Steady State ◽  
Pollution Control ◽  
Iterative Procedure ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Full Information ◽  
Nash Implementation ◽  
Tax Rate ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Regulation Model ◽  
Number Of Firms

We consider a repeated regulation model in an oligopoly under asymmetric information with pollution. An iterative procedure is proposed where the regulator designs stationary taxes, and firms are not required to be perfectly rational. They can form and update simple beliefs about their competitors' aggregate output at each period. Two versions of the mechanism are provided depending on whether firms behave adaptively or with perfect foresight. Conditions under which the procedure converges to a unique steady state are provided. It is proved that there exists a suitable stationary tax policy that enables the firms to adjust to socially optimal choices in the long run. The tax rates of both versions are typically strictly less than the ones that result from a full information, Nash implementation. Moreover, in the myopic case, the tax rate decreases as the number of firms increases. We discuss problems relating to the potential implementation of the procedure.

THE COMPARISON OF CORPORATE INCOME TAX IN LATVIA AND LITHUANIA

2017 ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Jūlija Ščeglova ◽  
Iveta Mietule
Keyword(s):  
Income Tax ◽  
The State ◽  
Corporate Income Tax ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
State Budget ◽  
Tax Base ◽  
Tax Rate ◽  
Common Features ◽  
Advance Payment ◽  
Tax Payers

Corporate income tax is one of the important taxes that provide revenues to the state budget. Article contains a comparison between Latvian and Lithuanian existing legislation relating to corporate income tax, studied differences between the tax rates, tax base, tax period and taxpayers. Were described differences that are related to the advance payment calculation, as well as created an example that shows how advance payments are calculated in Latvian and Lithuanian companies. As a result, it was found that there are several common features in the Latvian and Lithuanian legislation, with regard to corporate income tax, for example, the tax payers, taxation period, tax rate, the taxable amount. But there are several differences, such as the nuances of rates for non-residents, depending on the type of revenue, advance payment deadlines and other particularities of the calculation of the advance payments. Also differ corporate income tax payment deadlines. It was concluded that making advance payments in Lithuanian enterprises is more profitable, because it was calculated that at the same conditions, the amount of advances in Lithuania is lower than in Latvia.

Constitutional Rules of Overlapping Taxation among Multi–Tiered Governments*

2012 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-182
Author(s):  
Akira Yokoyama
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Choice ◽  
Fiscal Decentralization ◽  
Constitutional Political Economy ◽  
Tax Rates ◽  
Constitutional Rule ◽  
Tax Base ◽  
Tax Rate ◽  
Rate Constraints

Abstract The literature of public choice and constitutional political economy argues for fiscal decentralization and for enlarging the tax and spending powers of sub-national tiers of government. Numerous investigations of vertical tax externalities caused by overlapping and uncoordinated taxation appeared in the 1990s after Brennan - Buchanan [1980] and Flowers [1988]. The literature, however, seldom discussed constitutional rules governing overlapping taxation in federal or multi-tiered governmental structures. This paper closes that gap in the literature. It explicates the criteria for selecting constitutional rules governing overlapping taxation and demonstrates that a competitive tax regime constrained by a maximum tax rate surpasses a competitive tax regime without rate constraints as a constitutional rule. It concludes that constraining maximum tax rates applicable to any tax base is highly important in multi-tiered governmental structures.

scholarly journals The international Challenges and Finnish Corporate Taxation

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-148
Author(s):  
Juha Lindgren
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Taxation ◽  
Corporate Tax ◽  
Tax Base ◽  
Tax Rate ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Exchange Of Information ◽  
The Cross ◽  
National Tax

Abstract One of the main trends in Finnish corporate taxation during the last ten years has been the lowering of the corporate tax rate. The decision to lower the corporate tax rate to 20% from the beginning of 2014 also changed the approach in reforming the corporate taxation as it was decided to stay on the grounds of a broad tax base and not to make loopholes in it with targeted exceptions. The Finnish corporate taxation contains also some provisions that act as incentives for investment and the establishment of companies. However, the focus has been lately on the rules with purpose to protect the national tax base. Therefore, article handles both the specific anti avoidance rules and the application of the general anti avoidance rule on the cross-border transactions. Some particular challenges and the exchange of information are also taken into account before the conclusion with some ideas and aspects on future reforms.

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