Le rôle de la fiscalité dans la réduction des inégalités : doit-on se soucier de la structure fiscale servant à prélever les recettes?

Abstract

Au cours des dernières décennies, de nombreux gouvernements, concernés par les questions de redistribution des revenus, ont porté une attention particulière à la manière dont les recettes fiscales sont collectées. Cet article applique un modèle économétrique aux données de 34 États membres de l’OCDE sur la période allant de 1970 à 2010. Il souligne que le poids des recettes fiscales dans l’économie compte bien davantage dans la réduction des inégalités que les caractéristiques de la structure fiscale servant à les collecter. Collecter plus de recettes fiscales permet aux gouvernements d’offrir davantage de services publics et de transferts à ses citoyens. Ce résultat est cohérent avec la littérature qui reconnaît que la réduction des inégalités de revenus est principalement le résultat de dépenses publiques et de transferts

Reduction of Income Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa: Which Fiscal Instrument Matters?

“…The second trend is that tax revenues are much more important in reducing income inequality than the tax structure. In this vein, Dao and Godbout (2014), in a sample of OECD countries, point out that the level of tax revenue collected is more important than the tax structure that governments use to collect it. They also add that collecting more tax revenues allows governments to provide more public services and transfers to their citizens.…”

“…Equation 1, which models the relationship between fiscal instruments and income inequality is based on the model developed by Martinez-Vazquez and al. (2012) and modified by Dao and Godbout (2014).…”

“…Where Gini net is the dependent variable that captures income inequality after taxes and transfers. According to Dao and Godbout (2014), the choice of this variable is related to the fact that it measures the ability of taxation to reduce income inequality. The explanatory variables are as follows: (i) the Gini market taxes and transfers, (ii) the vector of the control variables (X), which is made up of six variables.…”

“…The choice of this technique is justified insofar as we suspect an endogeneity between certain variables. For example, as demonstrated by Dao and Godbout (2014), there may exist an endogeneity between fiscal instruments and income inequality. In fact, they show that a government could have to change its tax structure precisely because of pre-existing income inequality before taxes.…”

“…Two fiscal instruments are being debated upon. On one hand, some authors believe that the tax revenues collected are beneficial in reducing income inequality (Dao and Godbout, 2014;Martorano, 2018). According to these authors, tax revenues are used to finance policies to combat income inequality through the provision of public services such as health, education and transfers.…”