Redistribution and Income-Tax Reform

One of the most significant determinants of the level of redistribution or the capacity to change inequality within a tax-benefit system is the structure of the taxation system. In this chapter, we add income taxation and social-insurance contributions to the analysis of social transfers in the previous chapter. The chapter describes the theoretical structure of personal income taxes and introduces the concept of joint taxation. The chapter also addresses a methodological issue common to many microsimulation models and the creation of their base datasets, namely the inversion of data from net to gross. From a validation point of view, concepts associated with using external validation sources are introduced. From a measurement point of view, measures that aim to quantify the degree of progressivity and redistribution in tax systems are described. A redistributive analysis of a theoretical tax system, and the implications of a joint taxation system, is then undertaken.

Evaluation the impact of the personal income tax reform in the Czech Republic in 2021 on effective tax rate and tax progressivity

Legislation governing personal income taxation is often subject to changes. A significant personal income tax reform was carried out in the Czech Republic in 2021. The reform implements a progressive tax rate, changes the way the tax base is determined, and increases the tax relief for the taxpayer. The aim of the article is to evaluate the impact of the personal income tax reform on the effective tax rate and tax progressivity. To that end, methods of regression analysis have been used. The source of information for analysis was the data published by the Czech Statistical Office. It was found that in 2021, in comparison with 2020, the tax burden represented in this study by the effective tax rate, in all cases became lower, approximately by 5%. The main reason for this decline is the adjustment of the method of construction of the tax base, which, for the first time in the history of the Income Tax Act, is gross wages. Until the end of 2020, the tax base was a super-gross wage, or the gross wage increased by social security contribution borne by the employer at his costs. The second factor that reduces the tax burden is a CZK 3,000 increase in the deduction per taxpayer per year. This fact increases the degree of tax progressivity, as confirmed by the results of the progressivity analysis and the regression analysis. The changes that have taken place in the personal income tax this year have a positive impact on the taxpayer, but from the point of view of the state, this reform has reduced the state budget revenues.

The effects of personal income tax reform on employees’ taxable income in Uganda

We evaluate a major personal income tax reform in Uganda that came into effect in 2012–13. The reform increased the tax-free lower threshold, increased tax rates for higher incomes, and introduced an additional highest tax band. Using the universe of pay-as-you-earn administrative data submitted by employers in the formal sector, we analyse the impact on taxable income of the introduction of the additional top tax band. Our results indicate that the elasticity of taxable income in Uganda is larger than in previous results from developed countries. Overall, the additional revenue generated from the introduction of the additional top tax band by far offset the revenues lost from the decreased revenues from employees with medium to lower taxable incomes, despite the large elasticity of taxable income at the top. We contribute to the very scarce literature on the effects of personal income tax reform on employees’ income in a low-income country in Africa.

Tax reforms and income inequality in former Yugoslav countries: Escaping the avant-garde neoliberalism in the income tax policy

After the breakup of former Yugoslavia Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia followed different income tax reform trajectories that could explain currently different levels of income inequality in these countries. Our paper analyzes redistributive effects of introducing progressive tax systems, like the ones currently implemented in Slovenia and Croatia, in the Serbian context. Using microsimulation modeling and Survey on Income and Living Conditions data for 2017 our results suggest that implementation of both Croatian and Slovenian tax system would yield lower levels of income inequality and poverty if applied in Serbia. Slovenian system achieves larger decrease in inequality due to higher tax burden on the top incomes and brings significant increase in tax revenues. Croatian tax schedule achieves stronger decrease in poverty as more generous personal allowance exempt higher portions of low incomes from labour taxes.

Fiscal and Social Effectiveness Assessment of the Personal Income Tax Reform in Russia

The reform of personal income tax (PIT) that began in 2021, consisting in the introduction of a progressive scale with a rate of 15% on incomes of over 5 million rubles a year instead of the previously established 13%, assumes a preliminary economic assessment. The purpose of the article is to develop and test analytical coefficients for assessing the fiscal and social effectiveness of the income tax reform. For this purpose, global (macroeconomic) and local (industry-level, project-level) performance indicators are introduced. As a global fiscal efficiency measure, it is proposed to use the ratio of additional budget revenue generated by the introduction of a progressive personal income tax scale to public expenditures (the expenditure part of the consolidated budget). If the received amount of additional budget revenue from the introduction of the progressive personal income tax scale is more than 1% of gross domestic product (GDP), then the reform has the property of global fiscal efficiency; otherwise, the fiscal effect of the reform is considered insignificant. Similarly, the concept of a global indicator of social efficiency is introduced in the form of the share of the change in the coefficient of funds before and after the tax reform to the original value of the coefficient of funds. Then the following heuristic rule can be used: if the coefficient of funds after the introduction of the progressive personal income tax scale changes by more than 25% compared to its value before the reform, then the tax reform itself has the property of global social efficiency; otherwise, the social effect of the reform is considered insignificant. If the additional revenue received thanks to the reform makes it possible to multiply the socially significant areas of the national project «Healthсare», then the reform has the property of local social and fiscal efficiency. The calculations carried out using data from the international database World Inequality Database allowed us to make the following conclusions. The initiated personal income tax reform does not have the properties of global fiscal and social efficiency, but it is important for the fundamental acceleration of the national project «Healthсare». This allows us to speak about its local social and fiscal efficiency. The proposed analytical tools can be used in the system of state regulation in the design of tax reforms.