The Built-In Flexibility of Income and Consumption Taxes in OECD Countries

Author(s):  
Binhan Elif Yılmaz ◽  
Sinan Ataer

Compatible with a variety of cyclical fluctuations in fiscal policy, is the automatic stabilising fiscal policies. There is a need to calculate the income elasticity of tax for relieving the effects of cyclical fluctuations. Income elasticity of tax, that is tax revenue have relative change, the ratio of the relative change in national income. This ratio must be bigger than 1 to label a tax system as elastic. If this ratio is bigger than 1, this situation also show the tax system has an automatic stabilizing feature. By that way, without any changes in tax structure, tax revenues increase in the deflation times and decrease in the inflation times. The automatically compensatory movement of tax revenues, generally referred to as “built-in flexibility”, has received increasing attention. The aim of this study is examining the existence of automatic stabilizers in the OECD countries by evaluating the income elasticity of income and consumption taxes and by making cross-countries comparatives.

e-Finanse ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 27-37
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Mazurek-Chwiejczak

Abstract Social disparities have a common and consistent character in the vast majority of contemporary countries. The level of income inequality in OECD countries has grown in the past 30 years and is still rising. Taxes and tax systems, aside from social transfers, are fiscal instruments widely used in compensation policy.The aim of the article is to define the optimal structure of tax systems (i.e. the share of different tax categories in tax revenues) in terms of narrowing income disparities. To achieve this aim, scatter diagrams have been used. For the purpose of the article a tentative hypothesis has been formulated that the optimal tax system in terms of narrowing income disparities is characterised by a relatively large share of Personal Income Tax and at the same time a relatively low share of consumption taxes in tax revenues. The detailed analysis is focused on the countries for which the full data is available. The group of countries covers some “old” member states of the European Union (Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom), the South- -East European countries (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia) as well as non-EU countries (Canada and Iceland). These countries represent different levels of socio-economic development and, as a result, the variety of situations concerning the distribution of income.


Author(s):  
Teuta Balliu ◽  
Aida Gaçe Llozana

Countries of former Yugoslavia and Albania are considered as countries with many common problems as well as changes, which in this context are regarded as insignificant. On their way towards development, these countries are characterized by common problem, among which the most sensitive have been and still remain, unemployment, increasingly compressed public administration, unjustified optimism when planning the budget, mismanagement of public finances and poor fiscal discipline which mostly depends on being or not an election year. In these countries we notice the lack of harmony between economic and fiscal policies and the real needs of the economy. This is seen as other major common ofWest Balkan countries. This similiarity of problems narrows the possibility of competition associated to the foreign investment absorbing capacity. But, which is the moacroeconomic picture in the countries of West Balkan? What are their tax systems? How much are the foreign direct investments? Does the tax system serve as a promoter for these invvestments? This paper represents a comparative analysis of the fiscal systems in the countries of this region. The subject of this paper is the protection with arguments of the economic and fiscal policy which are built for the economic development of a country. This because we are given that there are two types of experiences related to tax system, one of which handles taxes as instruments for revenue collection and the other as a promoter factor for economic development.


Author(s):  
Anna Watson

AbstractThe paper examines the impact of trade credit on cyclical fluctuations in international trade. It provides new empirical evidence based on firm-level UK and Irish data showing that exporters use trade credit more actively and intensively than non-exporters. The study introduces inter-firm lending into an open economy general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms and endogenous entry into the exports market. It demonstrates that trade credit amplifies the impact of macroeconomic shocks on international trade both along the intensive and extensive margins and that it significantly contributes to the high trade income elasticity observed in the data.


1973 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 409-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Berney ◽  
Bernard H. Frerichs

The concept of income elasticity of tax revenues has been used in numerous studies with little concern about its theoretical foundations. Income elasticities have also been used for revenue estimation with limited concern about stability over time or about the accuracy of the forecasts. This paper explores the development of the tax elasticity measure and, using revenue data from Washington, compares year-to-year elasticity measures with those established by regression analysis. The length of the time series is varied to check on the stability of the coefficients. Finally, the elasticities are used to predict revenues for three years to check on their accuracy for revenue estimation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-73
Author(s):  
.Mohamed Helou Daoud Al-Khorsan ◽  
Hana Ali Hussein Al-Quraishi ◽  
Ziad Taher Mohamed Ali

There is growing interest by governments in different systems of government in which political ideas which it believes, taxes as instruments of fiscal policy, seeking to achieve through which political, social and economic goals as well as "financial targets, as the tax policy formulated objectives and plans its revenues consistently and harmony with the objectives of economic policy in general, In the context of the tax reform, different countries have resorted to the search for possible alternatives to maintain a financially, economically and socially effective fiscal policy. Iraq should not be different from these countries. It establishes a fiscal policy to achieve tax revenues by activating the role of the tax system to strengthen the budget in the light of economic changes and financial crises in recent years, The main reason for the need to activate the tax system in Iraq is the very modest contribution of tax revenues within the state budget, To address the reasons for the low contribution of tax revenues it is necessary to identify the elements of the success of the tax system and discuss the tax revenue in two aspects The level of general headquarters and branches on the one hand, and knowledge the facilities or obstacles which is provided by the tax system   to increase the proceeds of the receipt of the other, and finally reach the reform of the tax system, which we find an important requirement for the reform of the Iraqi financial and economic system in this time, In this context, the study deals with the tax revenues in Iraq as planned by the tax administration in accordance with the statistics of the tax administration and then identify the impact of the tax system in making the proceeds low for public revenues.


Author(s):  
Seher Gulsah Topuz ◽  
Taner Sekmen

In this chapter, the relationship between public debt and economic growth is examined for OECD countries. In order to determine this relationship, the data between 2002 and 2016 is analyzed using panel threshold regression methods. The findings of the study suggest that the relationship between public debt and economic growth is linear. The public debt threshold is estimated at 99.75% for OECD countries but it is statistically insignificant. While the public debt to GDP ratio is both below and above this threshold, the effect of public debt on economic growth is negative and statistically significant. There is no evidence of the existence of a non-linear relationship between public debt and economic growth. These findings are expected to guide policymakers in the implementation of fiscal policies.


Author(s):  
Dorina Plaku ◽  
Eglantina Hysa

The Albanian state has experienced many changes of this system over the years due to the policies and different regimes that have followed, but there has always been a tendency for improvement. The tax system and the informality are the mirror of the economy of the country, especially the favorable tax/fiscal policies that have been adapted to the economy, which bring economic development and integration of all the gaps to a proper economic environment. The chapter aims to find the effects of tax changes on the taxpayers. Furthermore, the study focuses on how the business performance has been indicated from the tax control. The data is collected from a survey which was focused in small and big businesses that operates in the capital city of Albania, in Tirana. The questionnaire is realized during April 2018. The main finds of the study are the different perception of businesses for the tax control and the impact of the fiscal changes on these businesses. All these fiscal changes that the businesses faced were more in disfavor of the small businesses.


2019 ◽  
pp. 135406881986608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niklas Potrafke

I use new data on central and general governments for 23 OECD countries over the period 1960–2015 (unbalanced panel) to examine fiscal performance under minority governments. The results do not suggest that minority governments had higher fiscal deficits and public expenditure than majority governments—corroborating many previous studies. An innovation of my study is to examine fiscal policies of minority governments that enjoy organized support of opposition parties. The results do not show that minority governments that enjoy organized support of opposition parties increased public expenditure to a larger extent than majority governments. If anything, fiscal deficits were somewhat higher under single-party minority governments with organized support of opposition parties than under majority governments especially. Minority and majority governments had quite similar fiscal performance in OECD countries.


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