Labour Taxation and its Impact on Economic Growth – Complex Analysis

The aim of the article is to provide a complex analysis of labour taxation impact on economic growth in OECD countries. As main approximators of taxation, implicit tax rates and the World Tax Index are used. Methods and tests of dynamic panel regression with the Arellano-Bond estimator are used from the methodological point of view. From the results of complex analysis, it is evident that there exists a non-linear relationship between tax revenues (implicit tax rates, world tax index) and tax burden (tax rates). There also exists a negative relationship between labour taxation and economic growth and the impact of labour taxation is the most harmful for economic growth. Therefore, in an effort to stimulate economic growth, labour taxation expressed by personal income taxes and social security contributions should be reduced.

Labour Taxation – A Comparative Study

In our paper we aim to analyze the tax wedge between labor costs and net wage, this being the main indicator for assessing the tax burden on labor. We analyze the components of the tax wedge and its evolution in time, in the OECD countries and in Romania. In this way we can get an image of the total labor cost, observing that our country belongs to countries where labor taxes have a very high level. Thus, from our analysis we showed that in Romania the tax wedge is around 42%, while the OECD average was only 35.9%. In these circumstances it is necessary to adopt certain measures for shifting the tax burden from labor to other tax bases, with the purpose of a fiscal relaxation of labor income