IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_1381.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the Redistributive Properties of Presumptive Taxation

Author

Listed:
  • Alessandro Balestrino
  • Umberto Galmarini

Abstract

Presumptive taxation, in which an income proxy is used as tax base, has been and is still used today in countries with very diverse situations - developing, transition and developed countries. Usually, this form of taxation is thought of as a revenue-raising device in presence of widespread imperfect tax compliance. We investigate the question of whether presumptive taxation can be used as a redistributive instrument. To this end, we employ an occupational choice model in which an individual can be either an entrepreneur or a worker. We allow for different abilities to dodge taxes across social classes, and consider both the case in which a conventional income tax is in place alongside presumptive taxation and the case in which only presumptive taxation is operating. We argue that a revenue-neutral reform introducing a lump-sum presumptive tax based on occupational choice can improve social welfare, and sometimes even lead to a Pareto-improvement.

Suggested Citation

  • Alessandro Balestrino & Umberto Galmarini, 2005. "On the Redistributive Properties of Presumptive Taxation," CESifo Working Paper Series 1381, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1381
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp1381.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joel Slemrod, 2001. "A General Model of the Behavioral Response to Taxation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 8(2), pages 119-128, March.
    2. Joel Slemrod & Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1994. "Analyzing the standard deduction as a presumptive tax," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 1(1), pages 25-34, February.
    3. Sijbren Cnossen & Lans Bovenberg, 2001. "Fundamental Tax Reform in The Netherlands," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 8(4), pages 471-484, August.
    4. Kaplow, Louis, 1996. "How Tax Complexity and Enforcement Affect the Equity and Efficiency of the Income Tax," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 49(1), pages 135-150, March.
    5. Slemrod, Joel & Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 2002. "Tax avoidance, evasion, and administration," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 22, pages 1423-1470, Elsevier.
    6. Louis Kaplow, 1995. "How Tax Complexity and Enforcement Affect the Equity and Efficiency of The Income Tax," NBER Working Papers 5391, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Slemrod, Joel, 1994. "Fixing the leak in Okun's bucket optimal tax progressivity when avoidance can be controlled," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 41-51, September.
    8. Efraim Sadka & Mr. Vito Tanzi, 1992. "A Taxon Gross Assets of Enterprises as a Form of Presumptive Taxation," IMF Working Papers 1992/016, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Boadway, Robin & Marchand, Maurice & Pestieau, Pierre, 1991. "Optimal linear income taxation in models with occupational choice," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 133-162, November.
    10. James Andreoni & Brian Erard & Jonathan Feinstein, 1998. "Tax Compliance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(2), pages 818-860, June.
    11. Stern, Nicholas, 1982. "Optimum taxation with errors in administration," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 181-211, March.
    12. Bennett, John, 1987. "The Second-Best Lump-Sum Taxation of Observable Characteristics," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 42(2), pages 227-235.
    13. Alessandro Balestrino & Umberto Galmarini, 2003. "Imperfect Tax Compliance and the Optimal Provision of Public Goods," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 37-52, January.
    14. Cowell, F A, 1990. "Tax Sheltering and the Cost of Evasion," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 42(1), pages 231-243, January.
    15. Alessandro Balestrino & Umberto Galmarini, 2005. "Presumptive Taxation, Markets and Redistribution," Politica economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 1, pages 165-186.
    16. Kaplow, Louis, 1996. "How Tax Complexity and Enforcement Affect the Equity and Efficiency of the Income Tax," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 49(1), pages 135-50, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bernd Genser & Andreas Reutter, 2007. "Moving Towards Dual Income Taxation in Europe," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 63(3), pages 436-456, September.
    2. Shlomo Yitzhaki, 2007. "Cost-Benefit Analysis of Presumptive Taxation," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 63(3), pages 311-326, September.
    3. Marchese, Carla & Privileggi, Fabio, 2009. "A model of the Italian cut-off system for taxing small businesses," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 127-134, June.
    4. Janet Holtzblatt, 2007. "Implications of Return-Free Tax Systems for the Structure of the Individual Income Tax," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 63(3), pages 327-349, September.
    5. Bird, Richard M. & Zolt, Eric M., 2005. "The limited role of the personal income tax in developing countries," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(6), pages 928-946, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Slemrod, Joel & Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 2002. "Tax avoidance, evasion, and administration," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 22, pages 1423-1470, Elsevier.
    2. Kalina Koleva, 2005. "A la recherche de l'administration fiscale optimale : l'approche par les coûts d'efficience," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques r05050, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    3. Meng-Yu Liang & C.C. Yang, 2007. "On the Budget-Constrained IRS: Equilibrium and Equilibrium and efficiency," IEAS Working Paper : academic research 07-A002, Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
    4. Kalina Koleva, 2005. "Seeking for an optimal tax administration: the efficiency costs’ approach [A la recherche de l'administration fiscale optimale : l'approche par les coûts d'efficience]," Post-Print halshs-00195354, HAL.
    5. Lorenz, Johannes, 2017. "Population dynamics of tax avoidance with crowding effects," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe V-76-17, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    6. Johannes Lorenz, 2019. "Population dynamics of tax avoidance with crowding effects," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 581-609, April.
    7. Sagit Leviner, 2008. "An overview: A new era of tax enforcement – from “big stick” to responsive regulation," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 2(3), pages 360-380, September.
    8. repec:ind:nipfwp:13 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Laszlo Goerke, 2007. "Corporate and personal income tax declarations," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(3), pages 281-292, June.
    10. Carlos Bethencourt & Lars Kunze, 2015. "The political economics of redistribution, inequality and tax avoidance," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 163(3), pages 267-287, June.
    11. Nikolaos Varotsis & Ioannis Katerelos, 2020. "Tax behaviour relating to the review of a revised regional tax policy: a study in Greece," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 9(1), pages 1-16, December.
    12. Das-Gupta, Arindam, 2004. "Economic theory of tax compliance with special reference to tax compliance costs," Working Papers 04/13, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    13. Timm Bönke & Beate Jochimsen & Carsten Schröder, 2017. "Fiscal Equalization and Tax Enforcement," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 18(3), pages 377-409, August.
    14. Mishra, Prachi & Subramanian, Arvind & Topalova, Petia, 2008. "Tariffs, enforcement, and customs evasion: Evidence from India," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(10-11), pages 1907-1925, October.
    15. Samreen Malik & Benedikt Mihm & Florian Timme, 2018. "An experimental analysis of tax avoidance policies," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(1), pages 200-239, February.
    16. Traxler, Christian, 2012. "Majority voting and the welfare implications of tax avoidance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 1-9.
    17. repec:npf:wpaper:13 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Benno Torgler, 2003. "Tax Morale, Rule-Governed Behaviour and Trust," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 119-140, June.
    19. Franz W. Wagner & Susanne Zeller, 2011. "Deutschland als Weltmeister der Steuerliteratur? Fallstudie einer Legende," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 12(3), pages 303-316, August.
    20. Louis Kaplow, 2000. "Horizontal Equity: New Measures, Unclear Principles," NBER Working Papers 7649, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Slemrod, Joel, 2004. "The Economics of Corporate Tax Selfishness," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 57(4), pages 877-899, December.
    22. Ralph-C Bayer, 2003. "Income Tax Evasion with Morally Constraint Taxpayers: The Role of Evasion Opportunities and Evasion Cost," School of Economics and Public Policy Working Papers 2003-04, University of Adelaide, School of Economics and Public Policy.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    tax avoidance; presumptive taxation; redistribution; occupational choice;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1381. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.