A widespread objection to the introduction of consumption tax systems claims that this would lead to high tax revenue losses. This paper investigates the revenue effects of a consumption tax reform in Germany. Our results suggest that the revenue losses would be surprisingly low. We find a maximum revenue loss of 1.6 percent of annual GDP. In some years, we even find a tax revenue gain. This implies that the current tax system collects little revenue from taxing the normal return to capital. Based on these results, we calculate a macroeconomic measure of the effective tax rate on capital income.
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Paper provided by CESifo Group Munich in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number
CESifo Working Paper No. 1489.
Find related papers by JEL classification: H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
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