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Tax Setting in a Federal System: The Case of Personal Income Taxation in Canada

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Author Info
Alejandro Esteller-Moré
Albert Solé-Ollé ()

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Abstract

In a decentralised tax system, the effects of tax policies enacted by one government are not confined to its own jurisdiction. First, if both the regional and the federal levels of government co-occupy the same fields of taxation, tax rate increases by one layer of government will reduce taxes collected by the other. Second, if the tax base is mobile, tax rate increases by one regional government will raise the amount of taxes collected by other regional governments. These sources of fiscal interdependence are called in the literature vertical and horizontal tax externalities, respectively. Third, as Smart (1998) shows, if equalisation transfers are present, an increase in the standard equalisation tax rate provides incentives to raise taxes to the receiving provinces. A way to check the empirical relevance of these hypotheses is to test for the existence of interactions between the regional tax rate, on the one hand, and the federal tax rate, the tax rate set by competing regions, and the standard equalisation tax rate, on the other hand. Following this approach, this paper estimates provincial tax setting functions with data on Canadian personal income taxation for the period 1982–1996. We find a significant positive response of provincial tax rates to changes in the federal income tax rate, the tax rates of competing provinces, and the standard equalisation rate (only for receiving provinces). We also find that the reaction to horizontal competition is stronger in the provinces that do not receive equalisation transfers. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2002

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Publisher Info
Article provided by Springer in its journal International Tax and Public Finance.

Volume (Year): 9 (2002)
Issue (Month): 3 (May)
Pages: 235-257
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Handle: RePEc:kap:itaxpf:v:9:y:2002:i:3:p:235-257

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Related research
Keywords: fiscal federalism; tax competition; equalisation grants; personal income tax;

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References listed on IDEAS
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  1. Thiess Büttner & Sebastian Hauptmeier & Robert Schwager, 2006. "Efficient Revenue Sharing and Upper Level Governments: Theory and Application to Germany," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Fredriksson, Per & Mamun, Khawaja, 2009. "Tobacco Politics and Electoral Accountability in the United States," Working Papers 2009003, Sacred Heart University, John F. Welch College of Business. [Downloadable!]
  3. Marius BRÜLHART & Mario JAMETTI, 2004. "Vertical Versus Horizontal Tax Externalities: An Empirical Test," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'Econométrie et d'Economie politique (DEEP) 04.11, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, DEEP. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Linda Andersson & Thomas Aronsson & Magnus Wikström, 2004. "Testing for Vertical Fiscal Externalities," Asia-Pacific Financial Markets, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 243-263, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Diego Martínez-López, 2005. "On the states' behavior with equalization grants," Economic Working Papers at Centro de Estudios Andaluces E2005/03, Centro de Estudios Andaluces. [Downloadable!]
  6. Rizzo, Leonzio, 2006. "Local government responsiveness to federal transfers: theory and evidence," MPRA Paper 5373, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Fredriksson, Per & Mamun, Khawaja, 2009. "Gubernatorial Reputation and Vertical Tax Externalities: All Smoke, No Fire?," Working Papers 2009002, Sacred Heart University, John F. Welch College of Business. [Downloadable!]
  8. Lisa Grazzini & Alessandro Petretto, 2006. "Vertical Tax Competition with Tax Sharing and Equalization Grants," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 65(1), pages 75-94, May. [Downloadable!]
  9. Federico Revelli, 2005. "On Spatial Public Finance Empirics," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 475-492, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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