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This study provides evidence of the relationship between adopting a value-added tax (VAT) and corporate income tax avoidance. Our analysis exploits the staggered replacement of retail sales tax with VAT in China between 2012 and 2019. Based on a sample of 6,948 firm-years, we find that firms affected by the VAT reform are associated with an increase in their book (cash) effective income tax rates by 1.4 (2.2) percentage points. Such an effect is more pronounced among firms that make the most of their sales to businesses than individuals and among those that are located in regions with low social trust and tax enforcement levels. Additional test results show that changes in ETRs are not mechanically driven by changes in sales and costs and consumption taxes brought about by the reform. While aiming to eliminate double taxation, the VAT reform generates a positive externality for income tax collection. JEL Classifications: H25; H26; K42. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do revenue-neutral tax swaps boost growth? To answer this question, we use a panel data set of nine OECD countries for the period 1981-2017 and arrive at the following main results under revenue-neutral conditions: First, the most growth-damaging tax is the corporate income tax, followed by the personal income tax. Second, a shift from income taxes to consumption taxes is associated with higher growth, while a shift from social security contributions and property taxes to payroll & workforce taxes has significant negative effects on growth. Overall, our results confirm the view that revenue-neutral tax reforms focusing on a shift from income taxation to consumption and property taxation would promote growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyse the passthrough from corporate taxes to investments by including two novel channels into a DSGE model for a small open economy. We capture both how foreign firms relocate and invest in the country when corporate taxes are reduced and how the inflow of FDI increases exports which spills over to domestic firms, that then increase their investment further. Our extended model allows us to study the importance of both transmission mechanisms and how they interact through crowding out effects. The corporate tax cut becomes self-financed when FDI-export spillovers are included, but only if other countries do not follow suit and lower their corporate tax rates. The largest self-financing contributions come from increases in various labor and consumption tax bases. A reduction in profit shifting further contributes to financing the tax cut. Our findings suggest that corporate tax levels internationally are not in equilibrium and that there are large fiscal incentives to further cut corporate taxes and reap the benefits from increased tax bases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines, in depth, the hypotheses explaining the tax effort of seven West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) countries over the period 1996–2018. The studies of Karakaplan and Kutlu were applied to the stochastic tax frontier model. This provides a new method for analyzing tax effort that solves potential endogeneity problems, especially those of income. This study confirms the positive impact of income, trade openness, urbanization, government capital spending and anticorruption on tax revenue mobilization, while the size of the agricultural sector has a negative impact on tax revenue. On the other hand, reforms of tax institutions have no effect on tax effort. The average tax revenue of the countries of the WAEMU is 11.34 and the average tax effort is estimated at 0.7901 over the period 1996–2018. Thus, these countries could achieve a tax revenue to GDP ratio of 13.72% if they fully exploit their potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the characteristics and inter-relationships of tax systems in the OECD countries over the period 2014–2020, i.e., from a relatively consolidated economic period until the end of the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. A predictable tax system is essential for the proper functioning of the economy. One of our two main research objectives was to develop a composite indicator for taxation, consisting of tax rates and tax administration time. This composite indicator was then tested using multivariate statistical methods. Our second research objective was to explore the correlation between tax rates, tax burden indicators and macroeconomic indicators over the period 2014–2020, focusing on three years, 2014, 2019 and 2020. An important criterion for the choice of the study years was that 2014 was considered the first overall year of recovery from the crisis, 2019 the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic, and 2020 the first year affected by the pandemic. We investigated the significant differences between the composite indicator categories and the tax burden macroeconomic indicators, and examined and tested correlations between the variables under study (tax rates, tax burden and macroeconomic variables). We found that the amount of working time spent on tax administration is decreasing, presumably due to the increasingly digitalised environment, but this trend has been slightly interrupted by the pandemic. Furthermore, we found that countries with more complex tax systems with a high tax burden perform worse on certain macroeconomic indicators, mainly in southern Europe from a geographical perspective; however, these potentially more burdensome, higher-rate tax systems of more developed countries do not put these countries at a competitive disadvantage. This reflects on the fact that these countries rely on the monetarist school rather than the Keynesian school, a fact which was also compared and considered in our paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accelerating the establishment of a new development paradigm in which domestic and overseas markets reinforce each other, with the domestic market as the mainstay, has posed new requirements for deepening the consumption tax reform. Therefore, we need to focus on accelerating the establishment of a new development paradigm, combined with the establishment of a modern fiscal and tax system and tax attributes, and make effective institutional arrangements for comprehensively promoting consumption, expanding domestic demand and then forming a strong domestic market. It is meaningful to reduce tax on consumer goods involved in upgrading consumption to meet people's needs for a better life and to raise tax on high energy-consuming, highly polluting and unhealthy consumer goods to enhance the regulatory role of consumption tax and to promote the overall optimization and upgrading of the industrial structure. The revenue of consumption tax on key tax items (categories) should belong to the central government to facilitate the smooth flow of the economic circulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter of the Case for Change paper considers the fundamental design of the superannuation system, and the best reform options to our tax system to: (1) support a sustainable superannuation and retirement system; (2) reduce unnecessary complexity and ensure greater consistency in the various superannuation caps and thresholds; and (3) encourage improved compliance by employers with the mandatory superannuation guarantee regime. There are a number of aspects of Australia's superannuation system which are inefficient and complex. Many of these issues are interrelated. Even parliamentary committees have observed that the tax treatment is complex: contributions, earnings and benefits are partially taxed and partially deductible, the result of a pragmatic attempt to reduce tax expenditures, especially those benefiting higher-income individuals, while encouraging compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The treasury analogy is widely used in most countries in the execution of fiscal policies striving to match taxation with public expenditure while, at the same time, the central banks tinker with interest rates and reserve requirements and conduct open market operations for regulating money supply. This paper investigates the relevance of those policy actions to the ubiquitous use of fiat money tokens which in addition to meeting public expenditure and paying taxes also facilitate transactions in the economy. A parsimonious model of the macroeconomic system subsuming the prevalent fiscal and monetary interventions is developed and experimented with to explore alternative policy levers for funding public expenditure and controlling money supply. A novel dynamic control regimen to regulate taxation and open market operations for controlling inflation is proposed. It is shown that while the public spending can be entirely met through new money creation, taxation and open market operations must be used as inflation control instruments, whereas expenditure instruments can be used to alleviate the regressivity of taxation regimen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The government size in developed economies expanded remarkably after the Second World War. This growth shaped the role of the government as a key player in the economic activity and the aggregate dynamics of a country. However, the way in which the government is represented in DSGE models is often reductive, containing homogeneous public spending and a few distortionary taxes without clear counterparts in fiscal data. This paper shows how dynamic general equilibrium models can incorporate a detailed government sector as defined in the System of National Accounts (SNA). This government features six types of public expenditures (i.e. the government's intermediate consumption, public wage bill, debt service, public investment, and transfers to households both in-kind and other-than-in-kind), and five distortionary taxes (i.e. consumption tax, capital and labor income taxes, corporate tax and social contributions). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To liberalise taxation and support business during martial law, the government introduced a 2% rate on turnover instead of VAT and income tax. The calculations confirm the planned reductions in budget revenues as a result of changes in the tax system; these reductions are not likely to be temporary. The changes introduced by the government are not a tax reform, but a need to support taxpayers during the russian federation's aggression. In such a difficult economic environment for domestic enterprises, it is relevant to study advantages and disadvantages of a new tax policy, which may (or may not) be pursued even after the repeal of martial law. The analysis of the economic nature of universal excise taxes or, as they are also called, consumption taxes (value-added tax, turnover tax, sales tax), proved that the most transparent administration and accrual are characteristic of the retail sales tax. It was studied that when levying a retail sales tax, it was difficult to identify the end-user. The disadvantage is that the state budget receives money once at the stage of the commodity last sale. A value-added tax would optimally balance budget revenues. However, the VAT mechanism is considered by most experts to be extremely corrupt due to the end-to-end control by government agencies over the actual payment of VAT, resulting in the embezzlement of public funds. Among the radical options for VAT reform, the proposal to replace VAT with a turnover tax is often considered. We fully support the generalization that the tax pyramiding of the accrual of turnover tax is a prerequisite for abandoning it all the same in favour of value added tax. Moreover, it is impossible to integrate the Ukrainian tax system into the European one without VAT. At the same time, EU tax legislation provides for simplified VAT procedures as flat-rate schemes, which is implemented in domestic practice in the form of a flat tax mechanism. Based on this study, it can be argued that the current taxation model in Ukraine is universal, namely, a combination of VAT and turnover tax application for business entities. The main objective shall be further improvement of these payments and their administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, tax favoritism—an approach that has weakened the extractive capacity of the federal government by providing tax loopholes and preferences for taxpayers—has remained since the 1930s. It has consumed the amount of tax revenue the government can spend and therefore weakened the possibility of the redistribution of fiscal resources. It has also made the federal tax system complicated and inequitable, resulting in undermining taxpayer consent. Therefore, since the 1930s, a tax reform to create a simple, fair, and equitable federal income tax system with the capacity to raise revenue has been long overdue. Many scholars have evaluated the Tax Reform Act of 1969 (TRA69), which Richard M. Nixon signed into law on December 30, 1969, as one of the most successful steps toward accomplishing this goal. This article demonstrates that TRA69 left tax favoritism in the United States. Furthermore, it points out that TRA69 turned taxpayers against the idea of federal taxation, a shift in public perception that greatly impacted tax reform in the years to follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complexity of the U.S. income tax system emerged in part from the differentiated fiscal treatment of specific investments and various sorts of business expenditures that, as Richard Wagner says, creates "a tax code so large that no one can read it and which creates nearly a unique tax liability for each taxpayer." While tax scholarship documents the costs of complexity, current scholarship lacks a normative legal theory that could inspire an alternative to this practice of targeted credits and deduction rules. This paper builds on Epstein's general Simple Rules framework to develop a radical simplification of income tax: the operationalization of a uniform expense rule, i.e., the application of a single deduction scheme across all expenses and investments. With regard to the trade-off between targeted rules and this general approach, this paper investigates the nature of a uniform expense rule and reveals its strengths with respect to political economy. First, a stable and universal expense rule would narrow the scope of politicians' ability to concentrate benefits on special-interest groups and would limit rent-seeking. The abolition of deviating rules for investments would restrict the scope of tax optimization, meaning that individual and corporate tax liabilities would be more determined by the ability to pay them. The same policy would save companies and government millions of dollars that they currently spend on tax compliance and administration of the tax system, respectively. Last, a deduction rule that applies across all businesses and industries would be less price distortive and thus would enhance the quality of the price signal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study fiscal devaluation (i.e., revenue‐neutral shift from payroll to consumption tax) in a two‐country model of international trade. We analyze how such a policy modifies competition between heterogeneous producers, endogenous markups, and the allocation of inputs. We show that fiscal devaluation increases (resp. decreases) consumption in the net importing (resp. net exporting) country, regardless of which country implements the policy. Numerical illustrations suggest that fiscal devaluation is a deflationary policy. In most cases, input resources are reallocated to less productive firms, partly because of the deformation of the profit structure along the distribution of productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the impact of a consumption tax reform on firm capital and productivity by examining India's replacement of the sales tax with a value‐added tax (VAT). Unlike the sales tax, the VAT allowed firms to offset their tax liability with VAT paid on capital inputs, effectively reducing the tax‐related cost of capital. Exploiting the staggered adoption of the tax reform across Indian states, we show that VAT adoption increased firm capital by 3%. The effects are driven by financially‐constrained firms – an important source of heterogeneity in a developing country context. We also document a corresponding improvement in the productivity of financially‐constrained firms. Our findings thus suggest that beyond revenue generation, consumption tax reforms can have the additional effect of stimulating investment and productivity in resource‐constrained environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relying on the Autoregressive Distributed Lag cointegration technique, this paper assesses the comparative effectiveness of the fiscal and monetary policy on output growth in Turkey for the period 2003:q1-2019:q1. The empirical evidence shows that both policies are effective in promoting output growth but with varying degrees, revealing that the impact of monetary policy on output growth is greater than that of fiscal policy. Overall, based on our empirical evidence, it can be suggested that the Turkish authorities should set sight on monetary policy to achieve higher output growth while seeking ways to improve the output growth-enhancing role of fiscal policy. To that end, among many others, budgetary flexibility can be increased through creating fiscal space and growthfriendly tax and spending reforms can be undertaken without jeopardizing the trade-off between growth and equity while giving priority to proper coordination of fiscal policy with monetary policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In an attempt to reduce tax distortions and increase economic efficiency, in 2002 and 2003 Brazil promoted changes in the PIS/COFINS tax, the main federal tax on consumption. Thus, in addition to the old cumulative regime calculated on company revenues, the noncumulative regime was created with higher rates and the added value as a tax basis. Design/methodology/approach: This paper analyzes the effects of the PIS/COFINS reform in a context of deindustrialization in the Brazilian economy, using a neoclassical model with two sectors. Findings: The results suggest that after a small improvement in the aggregate economy in the short term, in the long term there was a worsening of the macroeconomic indicators. From the sector perspective, the PIS/COFINS reform may have contributed to the loss of industry participation in the Brazilian economy. Originality/value: The study of the impact of the PIS/COFINS reform on industry through a neoclassical model is unprecedented in the national literature and contributes to the investigation of changes in the tax regime that occurred in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structure and the trend of the fiscal system reflect the orientation of the development model of Mexico in past decades and they determine its future model and its ability to meet the main social challenges (development, equity, wellbeing, environmental sustainability, etc.). The objective of this paper is to study the relative dimension, the tax structure and the trends in tax collection, as well as the nature and the objectives of the incentives and the tax benefits that have been enforced in Mexico in recent years. This exercise allows an evaluation of the 2014 tax reform to be made with the perspective of the past six years and the formulation of future challenges. A descriptive and qualitative approach was used based on data obtained from the Inter-American Center of Tax Administration (ciat), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (oecd), and the Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público (shcp). The structure of tax collection is analyzed, with a focus on the main federal taxes, as well as the volume and the composition of tax expenditure, by breaking down the existing incentives and the tax benefits on each of the taxes. The main results indicate a passive evolution in the collection power that grew from 12.5% of gross domestic product (gdp) in 1990 to 15.6% in 2019, principally based on consumer taxes, wage income tax and a strong dependence on the fossil fuels sector. This shows that some of the stated objectives of the 2014 reform--significantly increasing collection capacity and reducing the jungle of incentives and tax benefits--have hardly been met. In conclusion, some of the challenges that a tax reform should face in terms of inclusion, equity and sustainability are formulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Japanese government plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. However, it is not yet clear which policy measures the government will adopt to achieve this goal. In this regard, environmental tax reform, which is the combination of carbon regulation and the reduction of existing distortionary taxes, has attracted much attention. This paper examines the effects of an environmental tax reform in Japan. Using a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, we analyze the quantitative impacts of an environmental tax reform and clarify which types of environmental tax reform are the most desirable. In the simulation, we introduce a carbon tax and consider the following four scenarios for the use of the carbon tax revenue: (1) a lump-sum rebate to the household, (2) a cut in income taxes, (3) a cut in corporate taxes and (4) a cut in consumption taxes. The first scenario is a pure carbon tax, and the other three scenarios are types of environmental tax reform. Our CGE simulation shows that (1) environmental tax reform tends to generate more desirable impacts than the pure carbon tax and that (2) the strong double dividend is obtained in some cases. In particular, we show that a cut in corporate taxes leads to the most desirable policy in terms of GDP and national income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the main objectives of The Tax Institute has to advocate for improvements to the tax system. Topics include the release of The case for change has the basis for continuing to pursue the cause of genuine tax reform for the benefit of Australia; and Australia has a comparatively high reliance on corporate taxes compared to other jurisdictions.

Copyright of Revista Thesis Juris is the property of Revista Thesis Juris and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista del ICDT is the property of Instituto Colombiano de Derecho Tributario and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper introduces durables into a dynamic general equilibrium overlapping generation model with idiosyncratic income shocks and endogenous borrowing constraints, which depend on durables. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the welfare effects of consumption tax reforms in a richer model that captures the difference between nondurable and durable consumption. When durables are considered, the standard results that a shift to consumption taxes is welfare improving are overturned. The mechanism of this opposing result is that consumption tax makes durable consumption more expensive without relaxing the borrowing constraint. The inability of borrowing to insure against income risk deviates the economy further away from market completeness and particularly hurts young and poor households. As a result, welfare decreases, coupled with negative redistribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Júlio Oliveira and Gabriel Caldiron Rezende of Machado Associados summarise the tax reform bill approved by the Brazilian Congress and believe it represents a leap towards a modern and international VAT standard, although some caution is necessary [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tax collection is an important issue to ensure that governments provide public needs. Global tax competition compels countries to comply with global financial facts and to reform their tax structures. Although the fundamental purpose of taxation is to achieve the goals defined with essential taxation principles, the priorities of each tax reform are set according to current economic conditions of countries and terms. Research revealed that there is a decline in the performance of the income tax. This situation has led states to look for alternative ways to do the most efficient and profitable tax collection. One of these alternatives is Personal Expenditure Tax. The personal expenditure tax is a direct tax on the sum of the individual's period spending and cannot be reflected on someone else. Therefore, the person who pays the tax is also the taxpayer himself. With this feature, it is a type of tax that can serve the realization of the financial, economic and social objectives of taxation. In this study, the theoretical structure, operation and principles of Personal Expenditure Tax, a direct tax type proposed by Kaldor, were examined and its effectiveness was evaluated. In order to be successful in the countries where the Personal Expenditure Tax will be applied, it is concluded that there should be a number of infrastructures mentioned in the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was the most significant piece of federal tax legislation passed in thirty years. Not surprisingly, the TCJA has spurred the states to rethink their tax systems. This rethinking of state taxes was necessary even before the TCJA. To date, the states have primarily considered reforms that respond to the capping of the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction, and the current proposals, if enacted and successful, would only return the states to where they were in 2017, which is to say to quite mediocre revenue systems. This Article, the first in a series, argues that the TCJA should provide the final motivation to move the states to reform their tax systems in fundamental ways that made sense even before the passage of the TCJA. The reform that is the focus of this Article is the implementation of entity-level consumption taxes. The states should have implemented such taxes long ago for a number of reasons. Prominent among such reasons is that the United States under-taxes the consumption tax base generally and, if well-designed, a low-rate entity-level tax is not likely to spur much additional evasion. The passage of the TCJA makes such a tax more appealing because this tax would be imposed on business entities, and businesses can still deduct state and local taxes. Thus, this proposal represents a response to the new SALT cap. Two other complementary reforms are developed. First, states should tax the windfall given to certain unincorporated businesses by the TCJA. This too can be a form of SALT workaround, as the tax on the windfall can be reduced for those taxpayers hurt by the capping of the SALT deduction. Finally, states should bolster their laws governing the apportioning of the income of multistate corporations. These laws already govern the apportionment of the state corporate income and would also control the apportionment of the tax base for the two new taxes proposed in this Article (namely, a new tax on consumption and on the federal windfall). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mauri Bornia and Gabriel Caldiron Rezende of Machado Associados discuss the status of the tax reform bill approved by the Chamber of Deputies, to be analysed by the Senate during the second half of 2023. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Taiwan Economic Forecast & Policy is the property of Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taiwan Economic Forecast & Policy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper investigates how changes in the tax structure may affect Indonesia's long-run economic growth. The growth effects of the mix of income taxes and consumption taxes are examined using a set of panel growth regressions, which account for indicators of the tax structure, as well as both the accumulation of physical capital and human capital. The results suggest that income taxes may not exert a statistically significant impact on long-run growth, while consumption taxes may have a positive and statistically significant impact. These results, however, are not robust to changes in the regression's specifications. Hence, although previous studies predict that the mix of direct and indirect taxes may be an important determinant of long-run growth, this paper provides evidence that, in practice, this mix is unlikely to have an impact on the long-run economic growth of Indonesia. It is suggested that policymakers could instead focus their attentions on directing tax reform in Indonesia toward improving tax administration and the equity of the tax system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores tax policy effects and revenue implications of joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). It documents that countries joining GATT/WTO after 1990 have implemented tariff-cum-tax reforms, lowering tariff rates and raising consumption tax rates, in particular through reform or introduction of a value added tax (VAT). Employing a panel of 97 developing and transitional countries, 31 of which joined GATT/WTO between 1990 and 2011, using robust difference-in-difference specifications as well as the synthetic control method, we find a statistically and economically significant decline in revenues from import duties. This finding supports concerns about revenue losses, but also corroborates the efficacy of the late Uruguay GATT and the WTO trade regimes in promoting free trade among new members. Regarding consumption taxes, we find robust evidence that revenue substitution was successful, since revenue losses from import duties were more than compensated for by enhanced revenues from consumption taxes. With regard to the timing of the revenue effects, our results show that revenue losses in import duties mostly take place at the time of membership or later. Changes in consumption taxation, however, exhibit pre-membership effects, as revenues are increased, and VAT is adopted, often a few years ahead of losses in import duties. No such effects are found before the start of the accession negotiations, indicating that consumption tax reforms are initiated once a country is on the road to GATT/WTO membership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s coal resource tax reform, introducing an ad valorem tax to replace previous volume-based tax from December 2014, marked a new stage of the resource pricing mechanism reform. In particular, coal, as a pollution-intensive energy, is the main source of energy for China. With this in mind, it is the time to ask what the impacts of this reform would be on Chinese economy. A computable general equilibrium (CGE) model is applied to explore the impact of a 5% ad valorem coal resource tax on Chinese economy under four scenarios involving distinguished electricity pricing mechanisms and tax revenue recycling scheme by deducting consumption tax. Simulation results show that levying ad valorem tax will reduce the output of energy-intensive industries with minor negative impact on economy. A consumption tax deduction can offset the negative impact on real GDP and help the economy to restructure. The concern that reform will push up inflation is unnecessary, even under the market price mechanism of electricity. In terms of winners, export-oriented industries benefit when no tax revenue recycling, while industries producing private consumption goods benefit when ad valorem coal resource tax revenue is used to deduct consumption tax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a large number of countries, we augment the specification of import demand in NiGEM by accounting for different import contents of individual expenditure components. Three examples illustrate that these changes have important implications for model outcomes. In the case of the recently enacted US tax reform and in a 'hard landing' scenario for China, spillovers become more pronounced while the domestic effects turn out more muted than in the default specification. The reverse is true for the ramifications of a public investment push in Germany. Hence, we believe that our add-on to NiGEM can be a useful tool for robustness exercises, in particular for spillover studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article starts the process of rethinking the taxation of large, privately-held corporations. After outlining the impact of large, private corporations on the commons and the idea of "communal resources", it explores what is meant by wealth and corporate wealth, and analyses the thinking on why corporations are taxed. This article argues that (i) legitimate justifications for taxing large private corporations are not limited to corporate income taxation; and (ii) justifications specific to a corporate income tax do not hold up to close inspection, particularly in relation to large private corporations. This article also seeds the idea that a levy on corporate expenditure could conceivably form the basis of an alternative approach to corporate taxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on modest rate credit-invoice value-added tax (VAT) and using the proceeds to reform the current corporate and individual income tax and consumption tax alternatives. Topics discussed include businesses require upfront investments in research and development (R&D) and marketing to facilitate a global reach for their products and services, corporate tax rate could facilitate legislation that would limit the tax planning opportunities and U.S. investments.

The article focuses on differences among the various consumption tax options and policymakers must weigh in deciding whether to adopt a consumption tax reform approach. It mentions adopt a proposal similar to Senator Ben Cardin using a credit-invoice value added tax (VAT) to provide the revenue needed to reduce the U.S. corporate income tax rate. It also mentions dramatic reforms to replace all or part of the income tax with various types of consumption taxes.

The Hungarian tax system has undergone significant changes in recent years. The weight of labour taxes decreased by 3.3 percentage points, while the weight of consumption taxes increased by 3.7 percentage points between 2007 and 2012. This type of tax shift is not a country-specific one, but its rate is one of the largest in Europe. This study gives a brief overview of literature, followed by a presentation of the Hungarian tax structure in an international comparison, and a summary of the main changes of the tax system and relating measures, which entered into force after 2010. Then, in addition to the tax centralization indicators published by the Eurostat, an adjusted tax centralization indicator for the EU states is presented, which eliminates the tax component of public spending and transfers, takes into account the mandatory private pension contribution and compares the adjusted tax burden to the corresponding private tax base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This week Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva came out in support of uniting Brazil's consumption taxes into one VAT regime, while the US Senate approved a corporate minimum tax rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]