Richard M. Bird (International Tax Program, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto) Eric M. Zolt () (University of California, Los Angeles)
Additional information is available for the following
registered author(s):
In developed countries, the income tax, especially the personal income tax, has long been viewed as the primary instrument for redistributing income and wealth. This article examines whether it makes sense for developing countries to rely on the income tax for redistributive purposes. We put forth three propositions. First, the personal income tax has done little to reduce inequality in many developing countries. This failure is not surprising given that in many countries personal income taxes are neither comprehensive nor very progressive - they often amount to little more than withholding taxes on labor income in the formal sector. Moreover, the personal income tax plays such a small role in the tax systems of developing countries that it would be unrealistic to believe that this tax could have a meaningful impact on distribution. Second, it is not costless to pretend to have a progressive personal income tax system. Tax systems generate real administrative, compliance, economic efficiency and political costs. The costs associated with badly designed and badly administered personal income tax systems likely exceed the costs associated with other taxes. There are opportunity costs as well. Third, given the ineffectiveness of the personal income tax, if countries want to use the fiscal system to reduce poverty or reduce inequality, alternative approaches merit consideration. Countries need to make better use of their expenditure programs in targeting resources to the poor. Given the dominance of taxes on consumption in the tax structure of developing countries, the distributional consequences of consumption taxes are of far greater importance than those of the personal income tax. Countries can also make greater use of benefit taxation and in particular fiscal decentralization may allow for better matching of those who benefit and those who pay for government activity. Finally, countries can consider alternatives to taxing income other than the current comprehensive income approach.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by International Tax Program, Institute for International Business, Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto in its series International Tax Program Papers with number
0508.
Find related papers by JEL classification: H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies O15 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration O17 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements O23 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Development
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
Did you know? Citation analysis on IDEAS includes online papers that are freely accessible and whose text could be automatically analyzed, currently about 150000 papers.