Tag Archives: Tax

Income Tax Burdens in Switzerland

In the NZZ, Hansueli Schöchli summarizes recent evidence.

Wer in der Schweiz im Jahr 2017 wie viel Einkommenssteuer bezahlte

Anteil Steuerpflichtige (in Prozent) Anzahl Steuerpflichtige Minimales Reineinkommen in Fr. Durchschnittliche Steuerbelastung (in %) Anteil der Einkommenssteuer Bund/Kanton/Gemeinde (in %)
0,01 515 4 548 020 43,8 4,82
0,1 5 150 1 109 760 37,3 9,89
1 51 498 331 731 34,4 24,04
5 257 489 152 799 28,1 42,55
10 514 978 111 403 24,6 53,03
25 1 287 444 73 769 20,7 74,13
50 2 574 888 49 989 18 90,24

… Hinzu kommen noch die Abgaben auf hohen Löhnen für AHV/IV/EO sowie für die Arbeitslosenversicherung. In der AHV sind Abgaben auf Löhnen über rund 86 000 Fr. nicht mehr rentenbildend und deshalb faktisch Steuern. Bei der Arbeitslosenversicherung gilt dies für Abgaben auf Löhnen über 148 200 Fr. Für hohe Löhne bedeutet all dies noch eine steuerliche Zusatzbelastung von total 11 bis 12%.

“Dynamic Tax Externalities and the U.S. Fiscal Transformation,” JME, 2020

Journal of Monetary Economics, with Martin Gonzalez-Eiras. PDF. (Appendix: PDF.)

We propose a theory of tax centralization in politico-economic equilibrium. Taxation has dynamic general equilibrium implications which are internalized at the federal, but not at the regional level. The political support for taxation therefore differs across levels of government. Complementarities on the spending side decouple the equilibrium composition of spending and taxation and create a role for inter governmental grants. The model provides an explanation for the centralization of revenue, introduction of grants, and expansion of federal income taxation in the U.S. around the time of the New Deal. Quantitatively, it accounts for approximately 30% of the federal revenue share’s doubling in the 1930s, and for the long-term increase in federal grants.

Redrawing the Map of Global Capital Flows

Redrawing the Map of Global Capital Flows: The Role of Cross-Border Financing and Tax Havens, by Antonio Coppola, Matteo Maggiori, Jesse Schreger, and Brent Neiman:

We start with the dataset of global mutual fund and exchange traded fund (ETF) holdings provided by Morningstar and assembled in Matteo Maggiori, Brent Neiman and Jesse Schreger (2019a, henceforth MNS). For each position in the data, we link the security’s immediate issuer to its ultimate parent. The resulting data can then be used to create a mapping that transforms cross-border positions from a residency to nationality basis and that sheds light on how global firms finance themselves. …

First, in the case of bonds, positions are almost always reallocated away from Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and other tax havens. Under nationality, these positions are often associated with developing countries like Brazil, China, India, and Russia, which may reflect the fact that developing countries find it easier to issue offshore than onshore, where the legal system and institutional quality may be of concern to foreign investors. Reallocating positions from tax havens to developed countries is also common, though, perhaps because tax havens allow them to access international investors with less onerous rules governing the withholding of taxes on interest payments. These patterns may also reflect tax-driven profit-shifting, whereby one unit of a company raises money at a low interest rate in a low-tax regime and loans it at a higher interest rate to an affiliated unit in a high-tax regime.

Second, in the case of equities, we find that many developed-country investments in tax havens are actually associated under nationality with China. Many of these positions are in securities issued through Variable Interest Entities (VIE), a structure designed to avoid China’s capital controls and the legality of which may rest on tenuous ground. Relatedly, we see a large share of equities reallocated by our algorithm away from Ireland and to developed countries, an adjustment reflecting the popularity of “tax inversions” there.

Third, in the case of asset-backed securities, for several investor countries, we find large reallocations toward the domicile of the investor, often because the underlying assets are found there. For example, our reallocation matrix records that 73.4 percent of U.S. investment in Cayman Islands’ asset-backed securities should instead be thought of as U.S. domestic investment, largely because those securities are backed by U.S. mortgages.

“Dynamic Tax Externalities and the U.S. Fiscal Transformation,” JME

Accepted for publication in the Journal of Monetary Economics, with Martin Gonzalez-Eiras. PDF. (Appendix: PDF.)

We propose a theory of tax centralization in politico-economic equilibrium. Taxation has dynamic general equilibrium implications which are internalized at the federal, but not at the regional level. The political support for taxation therefore differs across levels of government. Complementarities on the spending side decouple the equilibrium composition of spending and taxation and create a role for inter governmental grants. The model provides an explanation for the centralization of revenue, introduction of grants, and expansion of federal income taxation in the U.S. around the time of the New Deal. Quantitatively, it accounts for approximately 30% of the federal revenue share’s doubling in the 1930s, and for the long-term increase in federal grants.

Tax Evasion and Tax Rates

High rates of tax evasion are not necessarily a consequence of high tax rates. In an NBER working paper, Annette Alstadsæter, Niels Johannesen, and Gabriel Zucman provide estimates of countries’ wealth holdings in “tax havens.” Based on BIS statistics the authors find that:

  • Wealth on the order of 10% of global GDP is held offshore.
  • In Scandinavia, the number is much smaller.
  • In continental Europe, it equals roughly 15%.
  • In some Gulf and Latin American countries, almost 60%.
  • In Russia, the richest citizens hold the majority of their wealth abroad.

“Fiscal Federalism, Grants, and the U.S. Fiscal Transformation in the 1930s,” UoCH, 2017

University of Copenhagen, Department of Economics Discussion Paper 17-18, July 2017, with Martin Gonzalez-Eiras. PDF.

We propose a theory of tax centralization and intergovernmental grants in politico-economic equilibrium. The cost of taxation differs across levels of government because voters internalize general equilibrium effects at the central but not at the local level. The equilibrium degree of tax centralization is determinate even if expenditure-related motives for centralization considered in the fiscal federalism literature are absent. If central and local spending are complements, intergovernmental grants are determinate as well. Our theory helps to explain the centralization of revenue, introduction of grants, and expansion of federal income taxation in the U.S. around the time of the New Deal. Quantitatively, the model can account for the postwar trend in federal grants, and a third of the dramatic increase in the size of the federal government in the 1930s.

Border Adjustment Tax

On VoxEU, Mary Amiti, Emmanuel Farhi, Gita Gopinath, and Oleg Itskhoki discuss a border adjustment tax and its consequences.

… a border adjustment tax … would make export sales deductible from the corporate tax base, while expenditure on imported goods would not be deductible … Therefore, if the border adjustment extends to all imports and exports, it is akin to a combination of a uniform import tariff and an export subsidy on all international trade …

… it would limit the incentives for profit shifting across countries by means of transfer pricing towards lower tax jurisdictions … the border adjustment tax is a destination-based tax, linking the tax jurisdiction to the location of consumption, rather than the location of production.

Under certain circumstances … the border adjustment tax has no effects on economic outcomes … Lerner (1936) symmetry [implies] … that a uniform tariff on all imports is equivalent to a uniform tax of the same magnitude on all exports. As a corollary … a combination of a uniform import tariff and an export subsidy of the same magnitude … [has] no effect on imports, exports and other economic outcomes … results in an increase in the home relative wage and domestic cost of production by the amount of the tariff. … the relative cost of domestic production increases proportionally with the cost of imports, as well as with the subsidy to exports, leaving no relative price affected, nor the real wage. … As a result, tax policies that feature a border adjustment, such as the value added tax (VAT), do not have to systematically promote or demote trade.

Amiti, Farhi, Gopinath, and Itskhoki discuss several conditions for neutrality:

  • Flexible wages. If wages are sticky, a nominal exchange rate appreciation may partly substitute.
  • Uniformity of the border adjustment tax. This condition would likely not be met. Exchange rate fluctuations thus would affect some sectors more than others. And imports by non-incorporated businesses would be favored.
  • Foreign currency denomination of gross foreign assets and liabilities. (Not met, see below.)
  • Unexpected, permanent policy change, to prevent anticipation effects and currency appreciation before the fact.
  • Unchanged monetary policy stance, also in other countries, in spite of the exchange rate shock. This condition would likely not be met.

If the conditions for neutrality are met the border adjustment tax generates no international transfer. The fiscal implications depend on the sign of the trade balance. A home country exchange rate appreciation (that keeps relative trade prices and flows unchanged) generates a lump-sum transfer from households to the public sector when households hold net external assets which they use to pay for imports. When households have net external debt and thus, export on net, then the fiscal implications are reversed.

Since the US has currently a negative net foreign asset position, the US must run a cumulative trade surplus in the future. … the overall transfer would be away from the government budget and towards the private sector …

When some gross positions are denominated in domestic currency an appreciation transfers wealth internationally.

Since for the United States, the foreign assets are mostly in foreign currency, while foreign liabilities are almost entirely in dollars, this would generate a massive transfer to the rest of the world and a capital loss for the US of the order of magnitude of 10% of the US annual GDP or more.

US imports and exports are predominantly invoiced in dollars. With sticky pricing a border adjustment tax would raise the relative cost of imported inputs and consumer prices.

US exports … will likely fall together with US imports in the short run, with no clear effect on the trade balance. As trade prices adjust over time, both imports and exports will recover, resulting in a neutral long-run effect of the border adjustment tax on trade.

Tax Evasion and Wealth Inequality

The Economist reports about a study by Annette Alstadsæter, Niels Johannesen and Gabriel Zucman who matched leaked information from Swiss banks and Panamanian shell companies with Scandinavian wealth records. Their findings:

  • Tax evasion is progressive. The average / top 1% / top 0.01% Scandinavian household paid 3% / 10% / 30% fewer taxes than it should.
  • Accordingly, estimates of wealth inequality (based on tax data) likely underestimate the degree of inequality.

Mankiw on the Congressional Tax Plan

In the New York Times, Greg Mankiw applauds the tax reform plan discussed in Congress. He emphasizes four points:

  • The reform would move the US tax system toward international norms, from worldwide to territorial taxation.
  • It would move the system from income towards less distorting consumption taxation, by allowing businesses to deduct investment spending immediately.
  • The reform would change the origin-based into a destination-based system (taxing imports and exempting exports, a.k.a. “border adjustment”), with similarities to a value-added tax, making it harder to game the system. “[T]he immediate impact of the change would be to discourage imports and encourage exports. … the dollar would appreciate … The movement in the exchange rate would offset the initial impact on imports and exports.”
  • The reform would abolish tax deductions for interest payments to bondholders, eliminating incentives for corporate leverage. “A business’s taxes would be based on its cash flow: revenue minus wage payments and investment spending. How this cash flow is then paid out to equity and debt holders would be irrelevant.”

India’s Fight Against Shady Cash Holdings

India follows suggestions to fight tax evasion by taking high denomination notes out of circulation … and introducing new ones. Until the end of the year, Indians may exchange the old banknotes against new ones, at banks or post offices, by identifying themselves. On his blog, J P Koning discusses earlier demonetization episodes in Iraq and Sweden.

India’s move does not exactly follow the well publicized suggestions currently debated. But it might work.

“Causes of the Transformation of the US Fiscal System in the 1930s,” VoxEU, 2016

VoxEU, October 11, 2016, with Martin Gonzalez-Eiras. HTML.

  • The US fiscal system underwent a radical transformation around the time of the Great Depression.
  • Perceived cost differences of revenue collection across levels of government, due to general equilibrium effects, can partly explain the rise of tax centralization and intergovernmental grants.
  • We develop a micro-founded general equilibrium model that blends politics and macroeconomics. (See the working paper.)

“Fiscal Federalism, Taxation and Grants,” CEPR, 2016

CEPR Discussion Paper 11482, August 2016, with Martin Gonzalez-Eiras. PDF. Also published as CESifo Working Paper 6062, Study Center Gerzensee Working Paper 16-05. PDFPDF.

We propose a theory of tax centralization and inter governmental grants in politico-economic equilibrium. The cost of taxation differs across levels of government because voters internalize general equilibrium effects at the central but not at the local level. This renders the degree of tax centralization and the tax burden determinate even if none of the traditional, expenditure-related motives for centralization considered in the fiscal federalism literature is present. If central and local spending are complements and the trade-off between the cost of taxation and the benefit of spending is perceived differently across levels of government, inter governmental grants become relevant. Calibrated to U.S. data, our model helps to explain the introduction of federal grants at the time of the New Deal, and their increase up to the turn of the twenty-first century. Grants are predicted to increase to approximately 5.5% of GDP by 2060.

India’s Tax System

In the FT, Amy Kuzmin reports that after debating for nearly a decade,

India’s parliament has approved a long-awaited overhaul of the country’s fragmented tax system … The bill … will amend the constitution to permit replacing the current patchwork of national, state and local levies with a single, unified value added tax system.

He expects the reform “to create a genuine single market” and hails it as “one of the most significant reforms to the Indian economy since liberalisation began 25 years ago.”

Financial Transactions Tax—Stalled

In the FT, Jim Brunsden reports that the European Commission’s 2013 proposal to install a financial transactions tax has not made much progress. At least nine countries have to sign up.

The report highlights that key differences remain on how to craft exemptions from the tax, including the problem of how to shield transactions in other non-participating EU countries such as Britain. Other splits concern how to protect market-making activities by banks, and also what carveouts should apply for derivatives that are used by traders to hedge risk when they buy sovereign debt.

Basic Income

In the FT, John Kay points out that basic income proposals have one major drawback: They are very—expensive.

Not everyone agrees. Switzerland will hold a national referendum on the introduction of an unconditional basic income on June 5th, 2016. The supporters of the proposal write:

A basic income already exists today. Everyone obtains one from somewhere; otherwise we would not be able to live. In our society today, no one can survive without an income. The level of a basic income is currently included in the existing incomes. The shift that is needed now is to make current incomes free of conditions up to the level of this basic economic security. In fact, the introduction of an unconditional basic income does not cost anything. To assure basic security by means of a social contract will bring about a new situation for income of all origins. It opens up the possibility for negotiations at all levels. Principally, the existing incomes could be decreased by the amount of the basic income.

Addendum: The Economist discusses the pros and cons of universal basic income proposals.

Taxing the Rich

In Taxing the Rich: A History of Fiscal Fairness in the United States and Europe, Kenneth Scheme and David Stasavage

explore the intellectual and political debates surrounding the taxation of the wealthy while also providing the most detailed examination to date of when taxes have been levied against the rich and when they haven’t. Fairness in debates about taxing the rich has depended on different views of what it means to treat people as equals and whether taxing the rich advances or undermines this norm. Scheve and Stasavage argue that governments don’t tax the rich just because inequality is high or rising—they do it when people believe that such taxes compensate for the state unfairly privileging the wealthy. Progressive taxation saw its heyday in the twentieth century, when compensatory arguments for taxing the rich focused on unequal sacrifice in mass warfare. Today, as technology gives rise to wars of more limited mobilization, such arguments are no longer persuasive. [Text from the Publisher’s website.]

Summary by Bryan Caplan:

Democracies have no inherent tendency to “soak the rich.”

Instead, democracies adopt high, progressive taxation in the face of compelling “compensatory” arguments for redistribution.

Only major wars of mass mobilization make compensatory arguments compelling.

Modern military technology has made majors wars of mass mobilization obsolete.

Therefore, tax the rich policies are a thing of the past, at least for developed countries.  They won’t be coming back

Tax Treatment of Negative Interest Rates in Germany

The German Ministry of Finance has decided (p. 55, nr. 129a) that for tax purposes, negative interest rates are not to be treated as the opposite of positive interest rates. Instead they are considered fees. This treatment lowers taxable income to a lesser extent than would be the case under a symmetric treatment.

Tax Federalism

In the NZZMarius Brülhart and Kurt Schmidheiny discuss the Swiss experience with a federalist tax system. Cantonal and municipal taxes average roughly 40 percent of the total tax take in Switzerland, see the first figure.

grafik-1

The decentralized tax system, tax competition between cantons and communities as well as mobility of high income tax payers imply that the effective average income tax rate substantially falls short of the unweighted average tax rate on high incomes. In fact, the effective average tax rate is degressive for high incomes, see the second figure (which the authors reproduce from an article by Roller and Schmidheiny (2015)).

grafik-2

Cochrane for Growth

In a blog post, John Cochrane proposes step-by-step (politically unattractive) measures to increase growth:

  • Smarter (growth-oriented) regulation, in particular
  • Higher equity requirements and less short-term funding rather than complex financial regulation
  • Deregulation of health care supply
  • More cost-benefit analysis in environmental policy
  • Broad-based consumption rather than investment taxes
  • Clear separation of allocative and distributive fiscal policy
  • Focus on distortions in social programs
  • Deregulation of labor markets
  • Rational immigration rules distinguishing between permits to entry, reside, or work and citizenship
  • Less government intervention in the student loans market
  • Less protection, more free trade
  • More spending for the legal and criminal justice system
  • Etc.

Corporate Taxes: Difficult International Coordination

The Economist discusses proposals for improved consistency of international company taxation with the aim to counter firms’ “profit shifting.” Harmonization does not seem to constitute a Nash equilibrium. Tax rates on “patent boxes” typically are much lower than the headline rates.

“Politico-Economic Equivalence,” RED, 2015

Review of Economic Dynamics 18(4), October 2015, with Martín Gonzalez-Eiras. PDF.

Traditional “economic equivalence” results, like the Ricardian equivalence proposition, define equivalence classes over exogenous policies. We derive “politico-economic equivalence” conditions that apply in environments where policy is endogenous and chosen sequentially. A policy regime and a state are equivalent to another such pair if both pairs give rise to the same allocation in politico-economic equilibrium. The equivalence conditions help to identify factors that render institutional change non-neutral and to construct politico-economic equilibria in new policy regimes. We exemplify their use in the context of several applications, relating to social security reform, tax-smoothing policies and measures to correct externalities.

Scandinavia’s Success

In an online book published by the Institute of Economic Affairs, Nima Sanandaji argues not only that the Scandinavian success story predates the welfare state but also that the welfare state actually undermined the success story. From the book’s summary:

Many analyses of Scandinavian countries conflate correlation with causality. It is very clear that many of the desirable features of Scandinavian societies, such as low income inequality, low levels of poverty and high levels of economic growth, predated the development of the welfare state. It is equally clear that high levels of trust also predated the era of
high government spending and taxation. All these indicators began to deteriorate after the expansion of the Scandinavian welfare states and the increase in taxes necessary to fund it.