Showing papers on "Tax reform published in 2010"

The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Changes: Estimates Based on a New Measure of Fiscal Shocks

Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of tax changes on economic activity. We use the narrative record, such as presidential speeches and Congressional reports, to identify the size, timing, and principal motivation for all major post war tax policy actions. This analysis allows us to separate legislated changes into those taken for reasons related to prospective economic conditions and those taken for more exogenous reasons. The behavior of output following these more exogenous changes indicates that tax increases are highly contractionary. The effects are strongly significant, highly robust, and much larger than those obtained using broader measures of tax changes. (JEL E32, E62, H20, N12) Tax changes have been a major public policy issue in recent years. The tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 were passed amid firestorms of debate about their likely effects. Some policymakers claimed that the cuts would both stimulate the economy in the short run and increase normal output in the long run. Others argued that they would raise interest rates and lower confidence and thereby reduce output in both the short run and the long run. That views of the effects of tax changes vary so radically largely reflects the fact that measuring these effects is very difficult. Tax changes occur for many reasons. Some legislated tax changes are passed for philosophical reasons or to reduce an inherited budget deficit. Others are passed because the economy is weak and predicted to fall further, or because a war is in progress and government spending is rising. And many tax changes are not legislated at all, but occur automatically because the tax base varies with the overall level of income, or because of changes in stock prices, inflation, and other nonpolicy forces. Because the factors that give rise to tax changes are often correlated with other developments in the economy, disentangling the effects of the tax changes from the effects of these underlying factors is inherently difficult. There is pervasive omitted variable bias in any regression of output on an aggregate measure of tax changes. This paper suggests one way of dealing with this omitted variable bias. There exists a vast narrative record describing the history and motivation of tax policy changes. We first use this narrative history to separate legislated tax changes from those arising from nonpolicy develop ments. We then use the information on motivation to separate the legislated tax changes into those that are likely to be contaminated by other developments affecting output, and those that can legitimately be used to measure the macroeconomic effects of tax changes. Finally, we use the legitimate observations to derive estimates of the effects of tax changes on output that are likely to be less biased than previous estimates. Section I of the paper elaborates on the conceptual framework for this study. It emphasizes that what we seek to identify from the narrative record are tax changes that are not systematically

A Review of Tax Research

Abstract: In this paper, we present a review of tax research. We survey four main areas of the literature: 1) the informational role of income tax expense reported for financial accounting, 2) corporate tax avoidance, 3) corporate decision-making including investment, capital structure, and organizational form, and 4) taxes and asset pricing. We summarize the research areas and questions examined to date and what we have learned or not learned from the work completed thus far. In addition, we provide our opinion as to the interesting and important issues for future research.

Seeking Shelter: Empirically Modeling Tax Shelters Using Financial Statement Information

Abstract: Using confidential tax shelter and tax return data obtained from the Internal Revenue Service, this study develops and validates an expanded model for inferring the likelihood that a firm engages in a tax shelter. Results show that tax shelter likelihood is positively related to subsidiaries located in tax havens, foreign-source income, inconsistent book-tax treatment, litigation losses, use of promoters, profitability, and size; and negatively related to leverage. Supplemental tests show that total book-tax differences (BTDs) and the contingent tax liability reserve are significantly related to tax shelter usage, while discretionary permanent BTDs and long-run cash effective tax rates are not. Finally, the model is weaker, yet still significant, in the FIN 48 disclosure environment. This research provides investors and policymakers with an extended, validated measure to calculate the presence of extreme cases of corporate tax aggressiveness. Such information could also aid analysts and other tax and non-tax researchers in assessing the benefits and risks of firm behavior.

Taxation and State-Building in Developing Countries: Capacity and Consent

Abstract: 1. Introduction: taxation and state-building in developing countries Deborah Brautigam 2. Between coercion and contract: competing narratives on taxation and governance Mick Moore 3. Capacity, consent and tax collection in post-communist states Gerald M. Easter 4. Taxation and coercion in rural China Thomas P. Bernstein and Xiaobo Lu 5. Mass taxation and state-society relations in East Africa Odd-Helge Fjeldstad and Ole Therkildsen 6. Contingent capacity: export taxation and state-building in Mauritius Deborah Brautigam 7. Tax bargaining and nitrate exports: Chile 1880-1930 Carmenza Gallo 8. Associational taxation: a pathway into the informal sector? Anuradha Joshi and Joseph Ayee 9. Rethinking institutional capacity and tax regimes: the case of the sino-foreign salt inspectorate in republican China Julia Strauss 10. Tax reform and state-building in a globalised world Odd-Helge Fjeldstad and Mick Moore.

Have the Tax Benefits of Debt Been Overestimated

Abstract: We re-examine the claim that many corporations are underleveraged in that they fail to take full advantage of debt tax shields. We show prior results suggesting underleverage stems from biased estimates of tax benefits from interest deductions. We develop improved estimates of marginal tax rates using a non-parametric procedure that produces more accurate estimates of the distribution of future taxable income. We show that additional debt would provide firms with much smaller tax benefits than previously thought, and when expected distress costs and difficult-to-measure non-debt tax shields are also considered, it appears plausible that most firms have tax-efficient capital structures.

The economic consequences of a Tobin tax: An experimental analysis

Abstract: The effects of a Tobin tax on foreign exchange markets have long been disputed. We present an experiment with currency trading on two markets, where either none, one, or both markets are taxed. Our results confirm the hitherto undisputed issues: a tax reduces trading volume, shifts market share to untaxed markets, and leads to negligible tax revenues if tax havens exist. Concerning the controversial issues we find that (i) volatility effects depend on the existence of tax havens and on market size, (ii) market efficiency decreases in taxed markets when tax havens exist, and (iii) short-term speculation is reduced.

Tax knowledge and tax compliance determinants in self assessment system in Malaysia

Abstract: Self assessment system (SAS) has become the key administrative approach for both personal and corporate taxation in developed countries including the USA, UK and Australia. This approach emphasises both the taxpayers’ responsibility to report their income and the need for them to determine their own tax liability. Central to the motivations of self assessment system introduction is an increase in the efficiency of tax collection for the tax authority; however, of more vital importance is the need to enable this without having an unacceptable detrimental effect on the other key characteristics of a well-designed tax system (equity, wider administrative efficiency etc). This requires the development of public awareness of tax laws, and improvements in voluntary compliance. According to prior studies on this topic one of the main facilitating factors in achieving these aims is the development of the level of tax knowledge among taxpayers. The objective of this study is to investigate how facilitating factors interact in the development of a suitable SAS focusing in particular on the role of tax knowledge. To explore the interaction in the real setting the country of Malaysia is used as a case tax system for this study. This country is due to chosen its fairly recent introduction of SAS enabling a specific focus on changes brought about by the move to a SAS with as little time for ‘noise’ creating factors as possible that may result from longer implemented SAS. It also enables a study of this topic in the context of a developing country where many of the prior studies in this area have had in the context of developed countries. This study focuses on the level of individual Malaysian taxpayers’ knowledge and explores how tax knowledge levels influence tax compliance behaviour in a new SAS. Data was collected through a large scale national postal survey resulting in 1,073 responses. Five stages were used to facilitate the analysis. Stage 1, using the t-test and ANOVA, focuses on the characteristics of taxpayers’ knowledge including gender, ethnicity, educational level and income level. Stage 2 attempts to describe the relationship between tax knowledge and tax compliance using multiple regressions. Stage 4 examines taxpayers’ compliance determinants more widely than tax knowledge. Nine variables were tested in Stage 4. Control variables were added in both Stage 3 and Stage 5 in order to assess whether the inclusion of control variables significantly affects tax compliance behaviour. The results suggested that tax knowledge has a significant impact on tax compliance even though the level of tax knowledge varies significantly among respondents. The results also indicate that tax compliance is influenced specifically by probability of being audited, perceptions of government spending, penalties, personal financial constraints, and the influence of referent groups. Results of this study answer such questions as which various taxpayer characteristics of tax knowledge affect compliant behaviour. The results of this study can inform policymakers on the extent to which tax knowledge is important in a self assessment system and in what ways it can affect compliance. It also provides an indicator for tax administrators of the relative importance of tax knowledge in assisting with the design of tax education programmes, simplifying tax systems and developing a iii wider understanding of taxpayers' behaviour. This study contributes to current global literature in this field of the relative importance of tax knowledge in affecting tax compliance, as well as exploring the factors that make people pay taxes in a self assessment system, and discusses methods of increasing voluntary compliance.

Investment Incentives and Corporate Tax Asymmetries

Abstract: Recent facts on the importance of corporate losses motivate more careful study of the impact of tax incentives for investment on firms that lose money. I model firm investment decisions in a setting featuring financing constraints and carrybacks and carryforwards of operating losses. I estimate investment responses to tax incentives allowing effects to vary with cash flows and taxable status. Results suggest that asymmetries in the corporate tax code could have made recent bonus depreciation tax incentives at most 4% less effective than they would have been if all firms were fully taxable. Cash flows have more important effects on the impact of tax incentives. Recent declines in cash flows would predict a 24% decrease in the effectiveness of bonus depreciation.

Corporate Tax Planning: A Study On Corporate Effective Tax Rates of Malaysian Listed Companies

Abstract: This study attempts to examine corporate effective tax rates (ETRs) of Malaysian public companies listed on Bursa Malaysia during official assessment system and self assessment system tax regimes. The objective is to examine the level of corporate ETRs during official assessment system and self assessment system tax regime and. To achieve the objective, this study uses pooled sample data of 316 companies for the years 1993 to 2006. In determining the two tax regime, the investigation period is classified into two, where the period from 1993 to 2000 represents the official assessment system tax regime whereas the period from 2001 to 2006 represents the self assessment system tax regime. This study finds that corporate ETRs are below the statutory tax rate (STR) in both tax regimes. Moreover, this study reveals that ETRs during the self assessment system tax regime is lower than the official assessment system tax regime. Additionally, this study also examines the determinants of corporate ETRs during both tax regimes. The result supports political cost theory which suggests that larger companies endure higher ETRs. Besides that, lower ETRs are significantly related to highly leverage companies, greater investment in fixed assets and lower investment in inventory. This study also finds that companies with higher return on assets face lower ETRs. Further, sector analysis are carried out to provide the evidence for the variability of ETRs across sectors. The results indicate that companies from trading and services, properties and construction sectors face higher ETRs. Overall, this study explains the impacts of tax incentives to corporate ETRs and determinants of corporate ETRs.

The Effects of a Bonus Tax on Manager Compensation and Welfare

Abstract: This paper analyses the implications of a currently publicly debated issue, namely the introduction of a bonus tax. We shed light on the effects of the bonus tax on compensation components and study its incidence. We use the Principal Agent model within a two-country framework and consider two main scenarios. In the first scenario the firm cannot relocate managers between countries whereas in the second scenario relocation possibilities exist. Our findings show that the effort based compensation component always rises in the country introducing the tax such that the optimal contracts are tilted towards more effort based pay. Moreover, the bonus tax negatively affects profits and dividends and thus the incidence falls on the firm’s shareholders. With no relocation possibilities, the country that does not introduce such a tax will be worse off in terms of welfare, as the dividend income accruing to its residents declines. Accordingly, the bonus tax can be interpreted as a transfer from the worldwide shareholders to the government levying the tax. However, the welfare results may be reversed when manager relocation is an alternative. In this case, welfare in the country introducing the tax is lower than in the no relocation scenario, while the country that does not levy a bonus tax might even gain in welfare terms.

Capital mobility and capital tax competition

Abstract: This paper surveys the literatures on two questions that are essential to the discussion of mobility and taxation that is the focus of this special issue of the National Tax Journal. First, it examines the extent to which capital is mobile internationally, focusing on empirical evidence on the tax sensitivity of foreign investment, the incidence of the corporate income tax, and savings-investment correlations. Second, it considers the extent to which the mobility of capital has resulted in interjurisdictional capital tax competition, drawing on the theoretical tax competition literature, empirical evidence on corporate income tax rates, the strategic tax competition literature, and the relatively new literature examining interjurisdictional competition in the form of allowing tax avoidance.

Carbon-motivated border tax adjustments: old wine in green bottles?

Abstract: (1285) Ben Lockwood and John Whalley We discuss emerging proposals for border tax adjustments (BTAs) to accompany commitments to reduce carbon emissions in the EU, the US and other OECD economies. The rationale offered for such border adjustment is that various entities, such as the EU, if making commitments to reduce emissions which go beyond those undertaken in other regions of the world, impose added costs on domestic producers which create a competitive disadvantage for them. Some form of remedy is viewed as reasonable to maintain the competitiveness of domestic industries when responding to global environmental problems. In this paper, we argue that despite its current carbon manifestation, the issue of border tax adjustments and both their rationale and their effects on trade are not new and, despite the present debate (which seems to overlook older literature), have arisen before. Earlier debate on border tax adjustments occurred at the time of the adoption of the value-added tax (VAT) in the EU as a tax harmonisation target in the early 1960s. But academic literature of the time showed that a change between origin and destination basis in the VAT would be neutral and hence the use of a destination-based tax in the EU to accompany the VAT offered no trade advantage to Europe. Here we argue that essentially the same arguments also apply for carbon-motivated BTAs, and in the current debate there seems to be a misconception between price-level effects and relative price effects stemming from a BTA, which needs correcting. We also argue that the impact of border tax adjustments should be viewed as independent of the motivation of the adjustments.

Are Income and Consumption Taxes Ever Really Equivalent? Evidence from a Real-Effort Experiment with Real Goods

Abstract: The public finance literature demonstrates the equivalence between consumption and labor-income (wage) taxes. We introduce an experimental paradigm in which individuals make real labor-leisure choices and spend their earned income on real goods. We use this paradigm to test whether a labor-income tax and an equivalent consumption tax lead to identical labor-leisure allocations. Despite controlling for subjects' work ability and inherent labor-leisure preferences and disallowing saving, subjects reduce their labor supply significantly more in response to an income tax than to an equivalent consumption tax. We discuss the economic implications of a policy shift to a consumption tax.

Business Power and Tax Reform: Taxing Income and Profits in Chile and Argentina

Abstract: This article examines efforts to increase taxation of highly concentrated, undertapped income and profits in Latin America in the aftermath of structural adjustment. Argentina has advanced further than Chile in two policy areas: corporate taxation, which taps firm-level profits; and tax agency access to bank information, which helps reduce income tax evasion. These outcomes are explained by drawing on the classic concepts of business instrumental power, which entails political actions, and structural power, which arises from investment decisions. In Chile, strong instrumental power removed reforms in both areas from the policy agenda. In Argentina, much weaker instrumental power at the cross-sectoral level facilitated corporate tax increases. Bank information access was expanded after Argentina's 2001 crisis weakened the financial sector's instrumental power and reduced structural power.

How Regressive Are Indirect Taxes? A Microsimulation Analysis for Five European Countries.

Abstract: Shifting the tax burden from labor to consumption is proposed in many developed countries as a way to make the tax system more incentive compatible. This article deals with the simulation of such a policy change to sharpen the distributional picture. Expenditures are imputed into the EUROMOD microsimulation program. Then social security contributions are lowered and the standard VAT rate is increased to maintain government revenue neutrality. The main conclusions are that (1) indirect taxes are regressive with respect to disposable income but proportional or progressive with respect to total expenditures, and (2) indirect taxes are in any case less progressive than other components of the tax system, making the proposed measure a regressive one. A possible solution exists in increasing the progressivity of the remaining income tax. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

The base for direct taxation

Abstract: The traditional starting place for a study of tax reform is a definition of an ideal tax base, which is then adjusted in light of additional issues. After arguing briefly that this is not a good starting place, the essay reviews the optimal taxation literature inferences for tax base policy, focusing on three questions. - If there is annual non-linear (progressive) taxation of earnings, how should annual capital income be taxed - not at all, linearly (flat rate, as in the Nordic dual income tax), by relating the marginal tax rates on capital and labour incomes (as in the US), or by taxing all income the same? - If there is annual non-linear taxation of earnings, should there be a deduction for net savings? - If there is annual non-linear taxation of earnings, is it worth having a more complex tax structure, particularly age-dependent tax rates? Would greater use of age-dependent rules in capital income taxation be worthwhile? The essay presents the Atkinson-Stiglitz and Chamley-Judd results that capital income should not be taxed, but concludes that the required conditions are too restrictive and not robust enough for policy purposes. Hence there should be some role for including capital income as a part of the tax base. The essay discusses some empirical underpinnings for two key elements in the conclusion - differences in savings propensities and the shape of earnings (and uncertainty about earnings) over the lifetime. The conclusion that capital income should be taxed does not lead to the conclusion that the tax base should be total income, the sum of labour income and capital income. The chapter leans toward relating marginal tax rates on capital and labour incomes as opposed to the Nordic dual tax. Also examined are age-dependent taxes (for example different taxation of earnings for workers of different ages).

The Effectiveness of Tax Incentives in Attracting Investment : Panel Data Evidence from the CFA Franc Zone

Abstract: In this paper we investigate to what extent tax incentives are effective in attracting investment in Sub-Saharan Africa. We test the neo-classical investment theory prediction that tax incentives, by lowering the user cost of capital, raise investment. Next to tax incentives, we also estimate the impact on investment of other investment climate variables that are under direct control of the government, such as the transparency and complexity of the tax system, and the legal protection of foreign investors. In developing countries these variables might be as important as or even more important than the tax variables themselves. Therefore, we analyze the policy changes in tax incentives and in the other investment climate variables for 12 CFA Franc Zone countries over the period 1994–2006. Because of their common currency (the CFA Franc) and common language (French) these countries constitute an exceptional basis of comparison to evaluate their ‘policy experiments’. The use of panel data econometrics with fixed country and year effects allows us to isolate the impact of the policy changes on investment, as if it were a difference in differences analysis with multiple policy changes. We find no robust positive relationship between tax holidays and investment in the CFA Franc zone. However, increasing the number of legal guarantees for foreign investors and reducing the complexity of the tax system helps to attract investment.

Local autonomy, tax morale, and the shadow economy

Abstract: Policymakers often propose strict enforcement strategies to fight the shadow economy and to increase tax morale. However, there is an alternative bottom-up approach that decentralises political power to those who are close to the problems. This paper analyses the relationship with local autonomy. We use data on tax morale at the individual level and macro data on the size of the shadow economy to analyse the relevance of local autonomy and compliance in Switzerland. The findings suggest that there is a positive (negative) relationship between local autonomy and tax morale (size of the shadow economy).