Tax Systems and Tax Reforms in Europe

Bernardi, Luigi; Profeta, Paola

doi:10.4324/9780203300336

Cited by 23 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…Radical reforms were introduced earlier in the 90s in Scandinavian countries, while minor reforms were implemented in Austria and Spain. For a detailed review of these reforms, see Sterdyniak (2003) and Bernardi and Profeta (2004).…”

Section: Tax-benefit Reforms In the Eumentioning

confidence: 99%

Tax-Benefits Reforms and the Labor Market: Evidence from Belgium and Other EU Countries

Orsini

2006

SSRN Journal

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During the last decade, several EU countries have tried to tackle unemployment and low activity rates through extensive tax cuts. In an effort to encourage the taking up of work -especially amongst the less productive workers -policymakers have shown increasing interest in targeted tax and social security contribution rebates as well as in benefits conditional on being in employment. This paper surveys recent tax-benefit reforms in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, The UK, France and Belgium, focussing in particular on the reforms carried out in the latter. The potential labor supply effect of the Belgian reforms are assessed via a discrete hours labor supply model. The results are then compared to similar evaluations of reforms implemented in the aforementioned countries. Results suggest that: (i) generalized tax cut are not always effective in stimulating labor supply; (ii) in several central continental Europe, social security contributions play a major role in determining the incentives to take up work; (iii) joint assessment of income for both purposes of taxation and benefit eligibility has unambiguous negative effects on the labor supply of secondary earners (i.e. mostly women); (iv) targeted reductions in taxes and social security contributions, as well as benefits conditioned on employment are effective means to promote employment, but (v) efficient design of these policies is of greatest importance in order to counter potential negative incentive effects on the population already in employment.

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Section: Tax-benefit Reforms In the Eumentioning

confidence: 99%

Tax-Benefits Reforms and the Labor Market: Evidence from Belgium and Other EU Countries

Orsini

2006

SSRN Journal

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“…Changes of the personal income tax schedule have been recently implemented or planned in several European countries (see Bernardi & Profeta, 2004, for a review). A general trend is to reduce the complexity of the income tax which becomes closer to a flat rate tax.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political support and tax reforms with an application to Italy

Profeta

2006

Public Choice

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In 2001 the Italian government introduced a personal income tax reform to be implemented in successive phases. In 2004 taxes were reduced to all income levels with higher gains for low-income and high-income individuals than for middle-income ones. A large debate arised. This paper explores the political economy reasons under this tax reform, mainly the attempt of the government to attract the uncertain voters (swing voters). A probabilistic voting model is introduced to capture the importance of swing voters. The model predicts that the average personal income tax rate tends to be lower for groups of lower income, higher preference for leisure and containing more politically mobile voters (swing voters). However, data from Italian polls show that, while the tax reform was a good strategy to attract swing voters, the specific design of the reform, which favored high-income and low-income individuals, but not the middle class, was not the more appropriate strategy. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007Swing voters, Probabilistic voting, Survey evidence, Applied political economy,

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“…In European countries, being democracy a mature concept, other political factors play a crucial role in the field of taxation (see Bernardi andProfeta, 2004 andProfeta, 2004). Previous studies have highlighted that the political framework, defined by the composition of executive and legislative institution, matters in tax design and tax reforms (see Castanheira et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Political Economy of Taxation in Europe

Profeta¹,

Scabrosetti²

2017

HPE-RPE

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Political variables play a crucial role in shaping tax systems and tax reforms in Europe. This paper presents new evidence on the relationship between political factors and tax design in European countries. For the period 1995-2012, we find that, when the country's ruling coalition is left-wing, income taxes become more relevant. Moreover, when the largest government party is more powerful, the share of property taxes over GDP increases, while the number of seats held by the second government party is positively associated with the level of consumption taxes over GDP. We also find that a more powerful government is associated with a lower top tax rate of the personal income tax (PIT). Building upon this evidence, we review the main arguments developed by the empirical political economy literature on taxation and discuss the role of political factors in fundamental issues of taxation: redistribution and progressivity; tax design and its impact on growth; tax complexity; tax administration; tax competition; and the need for tax reforms.

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Tax Systems and Tax Reforms in Europe

Cited by 23 publications

References 0 publications

Tax-Benefits Reforms and the Labor Market: Evidence from Belgium and Other EU Countries

Tax-Benefits Reforms and the Labor Market: Evidence from Belgium and Other EU Countries

Political support and tax reforms with an application to Italy

The Political Economy of Taxation in Europe

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