Myth and Reality of Flat Tax Reform

Myth and Reality of Flat Tax Reform PDF Author: Yuriy Gorodnichenko
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Flat-rate income tax
Languages : en
Pages : 55

Get Book Here

Book Description
Using micro-level data, we examine the effects of Russia's 2001 flat rate income tax reform on consumption, income, and tax evasion. We use the gap between household expenditures and reported earnings as a proxy for tax evasion with data from a household panel for 1998-2004. Utilizing difference-in-difference and regression-discontinuity-type approaches, we find that large and significant changes in tax evasion following the flat tax reform are associated with changes in voluntary compliance and cannot be explained by changes in tax enforcement policies. We also find the productivity response of taxpayers to the flat tax reform is small relative to the tax evasion response. Finally, we develop a feasible framework to assess the deadweight loss from personal income tax in the presence of tax evasion based on the consumption response to tax changes. We show that because of the strong tax evasion response the efficiency gain from the Russian flat tax reform is at least 30% smaller than the gain implied by conventional approaches.

Myth and Reality of Flat Tax Reform

Myth and Reality of Flat Tax Reform PDF Author: Yuriy Gorodnichenko
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
Using micro-level data, we examine the effects of Russia's 2001 flat rate income tax reform on consumption, income, and tax evasion. We use the gap between household expenditures and reported earnings as a proxy for tax evasion with data from a household panel for 1998-2004. Utilizing difference-in-difference and regression-discontinuity-type approaches, we find that large and significant changes in tax evasion following the flat tax reform are associated with changes in voluntary compliance and cannot be explained by changes in tax enforcement policies. We also find the productivity response of taxpayers to the flat tax reform is small relative to the tax evasion response. Finally, we develop a feasible framework to assess the deadweight loss from personal income tax in the presence of tax evasion based on the consumption response to tax changes. We show that because of the strong tax evasion response the efficiency gain from the Russian flat tax reform is at least 30% smaller than the gain implied by conventional approaches.

Federal Tax Reform

Federal Tax Reform PDF Author: Michael J. Boskin
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9781412823517
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Get Book Here

Book Description


Reforming Capital Gains Tax

Reforming Capital Gains Tax PDF Author: Stephen Kirchner
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781864322163
Category : Capital gains tax
Languages : en
Pages : 16

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Argues for further reform of capital gains tax, building on the approach taken by the Ralph reforms a decade ago. Reform options include a flat tax rate for capital gains, the abolition of minimum holding periods for concessional tax treatment, and the reinstatement of the indexation of capital gains for inflation." - page 2.

The Russian Flat Tax Reform

The Russian Flat Tax Reform PDF Author: Anna Ivanova
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1451860358
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 49

Get Book Here

Book Description
Russia dramatically reduced its higher rates of personal income tax (PIT) in 2001 establishing a single marginal rate at the low level of 13 percent. In the following year, real revenue from the PIT actually increased by about 26 percent. This 'flat tax' experience has attracted much attention (and emulation) among policymakers, making it perhaps the most important tax reform of recent years. But it has been little studied. This paper asks whether the strong revenue performance of the PIT was itself a consequence of this reform, using both macro evidence and, in particular, micro-level data on the experiences of individuals and households affected by the reform to varying degrees. It concludes that there is no evidence of a strong supply side effect of the reform. Compliance, however, did improve quite substantially-by about one third according to our estimates-though it remains unclear whether this was due to the parametric reforms or to accompanying changes in enforcement.

The Benefit and The Burden

The Benefit and The Burden PDF Author: Bruce Bartlett
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451646267
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Get Book Here

Book Description
A thoughtful and surprising argument for American tax reform, arguably the most overdue political debate facing the nation, from one of the most respected political and economic thinkers, advisers, and writers of our time. THE UNITED STATES TAX CODE HAS UNDERGONE NO SERIOUS REFORM SINCE 1986. Since then, loopholes, exemptions, credits, and deductions have distorted its clarity, increased its inequity, and frustrated our ability to govern ourselves. By tracing the history of our own tax system and assessing the way other countries have solved similar problems, Bruce Bartlett explores the surprising answers to all these issues, giving a sense of the tax code’s many benefits—and its inevitable burdens. From one of the most respected political and economic thinkers, advisers, and writers of our time, The Benefit and the Burden is a thoughtful and surprising argument for American tax reform.

Dangerous Thoughts

Dangerous Thoughts PDF Author: Gary Jason
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1465369422
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 632

Get Book Here

Book Description
Dangerous Thoughts is a collection of Gary Jason’s most popular and provocative articles from newspapers and political magazines, nearly three hundred in all. A few of these were published as far back as the later 1970s, but most of them are of recent vintage. There are eight broad topics the articles cover, and are gathered together in chapters accordingly. The first is school reform, and the critical need for school choice. The second is environmentalism and its negative impact on rational energy policy. The third is demographic change the continuing need for immigrants (legal, and within reasonable limits). The fourth centers around the continuing need for free trade. The fifth is the need for entitlement program reform. The sixth is the need for various political reforms, and the seventh various economic ones. The eighth is the divide between intellectual elites and ordinary citizens. A final chapter includes various miscellaneous pieces.

Developing Alternative Frameworks for Explaining Tax Compliance

Developing Alternative Frameworks for Explaining Tax Compliance PDF Author: James Alm
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136970657
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 469

Get Book Here

Book Description
Over the last several decades, there has been a growing interest in theoretical, empirical, and experimental work on all aspects of tax compliance and tax evasion. The essays in this volume summarize the existing state of knowledge of tax compliance and tax evasion, present new thinking about this issue, and analyze the empirical relevance of these new perspectives. The original essays in this volume represent an attempt to provide a framework on compliance that moves beyond the economics-of-crime perspective, one that provides a more complete understanding of individual (and group) decisions, and one that is more consistent with empirical evidence. It is the insights of behavioural economics that provide much of the bases for these essays and the main theme running through this book is that the basic model of individual choice must be expanded, by introducing some aspects of behaviour or motivation considered explicitly by other social sciences.

No Precedent, No Plan

No Precedent, No Plan PDF Author: Martin G. Gilman
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262014653
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 355

Get Book Here

Book Description
Review: "In 1998, President Boris Yeltsin's government defaulted on its domestic debt and Russia experienced a financial meltdown that brought it to the brink of disaster. In No Precedent, No plan, Martin Gilman offers an insider's view of Russia's financial crisis. As the International Monetary Fund's senior person in Moscow, Gilman was in the eye of the storm. Russia's policy response to the economic collapse stemming from the disintegration of the Soviet Union was chaotic. Fiscal deficits loomed in anticipation of future budget revenue that never seemed to materialize--despite repeated promises to the IMF. The rapid buildup of sovereign debt would have challenged even a competent government. In the new Russia, with its barely functioning government and no consensus on the path toward democratic and economic transformation, domestic politics trumped economic common sense." "Gilman argues that the debt default, although avoidable, actually spurred Russia to integrate its economy with the rest of the world. In analyzing the ordeal of the 1998 crisis, Gilman suggests that the IMF helped Russia avoid an even greater catastrophe. He details the IMF's involvement and underscores the unique challenge that Russia presented to the IMF. There really was no precedent, even if economist Joseph Stiglitz and others argued otherwise. In recounting Russia's emergence from the IMF's tutelage, Gilman explains how the shell-shocked Russian public turned to Vladimir Putin in search of stability after the trauma of 1998. And although Russia's own prospects are favorable, Gilman expresses concern that the 1998 Russian default could serve as an unfortunate precedent for sovereign defaults in the future with the IMF once again playing a similar role." "No Precedent, No Plan offers a definitive account--the first from an insider's perspective--of Russia's painful transition to a market economy."--BOOK JACKET

Saving the Sacred Sea

Saving the Sacred Sea PDF Author: Kate Pride Brown
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190660961
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Civil society" is a loaded concept in Russia; during the Soviet period, the voices that heralded civil society were the same ones that demanded the Union's dissolution. So, for the Kremlin, civil society is not the guarantor of democracy, but a force that has the power to end governments. This book looks at how civil society negotiates power on a global stage, under Russia's authoritarian regime, and in a particularly isolated and remote part of the world: within environmental activism around Lake Baikal in Siberia. More than a mile deep, Lake Baikal is the oldest, deepest, and most voluminous lake on the Earth, and home to thousands of endemic species. It is also ecologically unique in that it is oxygenated to its maximum depth and supports life even at the lake floor -- a phenomenon occurring nowhere else on the planet. The lake is not just a natural wonder, but home to a strong environmentalist community that works tirelessly to protect the lake from human harm. Environmentalism at Baikal began in the late 1950s, eventually igniting the first national protest in the USSR. They have remained active in some form ever since, across the years of chaos, instability, and crisis, from the opening of Russia to the forces of globalization to the authoritarianism of Putin in the present. This book examines the struggle of Baikal environmentalists to develop a new understanding of civil society under conditions of globalization and authoritarianism. Through extended, historically-informed ethnographic analysis, Kate Pride Brown argues that civil society is engaged with political and economic elites in a dynamic struggle within a field of power. Understanding the field of power helps to explain a number of contradictions. For example, why does civil society seem to both bolster democracy and threaten it? Why do capitalist corporations and environmental organizations form partnerships despite their general hostility toward each other? And why has democracy proven to be so elusive in Russia? The field of power posits new answers to these questions, as Baikal environmental activists struggle to protect and save their Sacred Sea.