IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bic/opaper/8.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Tax reform in Latvia: Could it be fair?

Author

Listed:
  • Alf Vanags

    (Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies (BICEPS))

Abstract

The recently published guidelines for the medium term development of Latvia’s tax system (Nodokļu un nodevu sistēmas attīstības pamatnostādnes 2011-2015” have for the first time introduced social fairness (socialais taisnīgums) as an explicit goal of Latvian tax policy. Social fairness is further explained in the guidelines as “a more progressive tax system” and a “lower tax burden on lower wage workers and a higher tax burden on exclusive properties”. The challenge for policy-makers is how to realise this goal in combination with the other goals, in particular the goal of improving the competitiveness of the Latvian economy. The aim of this paper is to operationalise the concept of fairness of a tax system by developing quantitative indicators of tax fairness.

Suggested Citation

  • Alf Vanags, 2010. "Tax reform in Latvia: Could it be fair?," SSE Riga/BICEPS Occasional Papers 8, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies (BICEPS);Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga).
    • Handle: RePEc:bic:opaper:8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://biceps.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/occasionalpaperno8.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tresch, Richard W., 2014. "Public Finance," Elsevier Monographs, Elsevier, edition 3, number 9780124158344.
    2. Aronson, J Richard & Johnson, Paul & Lambert, Peter J, 1994. "Redistributive Effects and Unequal Income Tax Treatment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(423), pages 262-270, March.
    3. Sah, Raaj Kumar, 1983. "How much redistribution is possible through commodity taxes?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 89-101, February.
    4. Kakwani, Nanak & Lambert, Peter J., 1998. "On measuring inequity in taxation: a new approach," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 369-380, May.
    5. Atkinson, A. B. & Stiglitz, J. E., 1976. "The design of tax structure: Direct versus indirect taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(1-2), pages 55-75.
    6. André Decoster, 2005. "How progressive are indirect taxes in Russia?," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 13(4), pages 705-729, October.
    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. Anna Zasova & Marija Krūmiņa & Olga Rastrigina, 2012. "The evolution of tax and benefit policy in Latvia: what has been the place of distributional considerations?," Baltic Journal of Economics, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies, vol. 12(2), pages 5-16, 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. Kaplanoglou, Georgia & Newbery, David Michael, 2003. "Indirect Taxation in Greece: Evaluation and Possible Reform," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 10(5), pages 511-533, September.
    2. Pierre Bachas & Lucie Gadenne & Anders Jensen, 2024. "Informality, Consumption Taxes, and Redistribution," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(5), pages 2604-2634.
    3. Ivica Urban, 2009. "Kakwani decomposition of redistributive effect: Origins, critics and upgrades," Working Papers 148, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    4. Cathal O'Donoghue & Massimo Baldini, 2004. "Modelling the Redistributive Impact of Indirect Taxes in Europe: An Application of EUROMOD," Working Papers 0077, National University of Ireland Galway, Department of Economics, revised 2004.
    5. Mario Morger & Christoph A. Schaltegger, 2018. "Income tax schedule and redistribution in direct democracies – the Swiss case," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 16(3), pages 413-438, September.
    6. Boadway, Robin, 1999. "Le rôle de la théorie de l’optimum du second rang en économie publique," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 75(1), pages 29-65, mars-juin.
    7. Auerbach, Alan J., 2006. "Tax Reform in the 21st Century," Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics, Working Paper Series qt444479wh, Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics.
    8. Simone Pellegrino & Achille Vernizzi, 2023. "On measuring axiom violations due to each tax instrument applied in a real-world personal income tax," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 61(4), pages 853-882, November.
    9. Feltenstein, Andrew & Mejia, Carolina & Newhouse, David & Sedrakyan, Gohar, 2017. "The poverty implications of alternative tax reforms: Results from a numerical application to Pakistan," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 12-31.
    10. Carlos Díaz-Caro & Jorge Onrubia, 2019. "How Did the ‘Dualization’ of the Spanish Income Tax Affect Horizontal Equity? Assessing its Impact Using Copula Functions," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 231(4), pages 81-124, December.
    11. Justin Van De Ven & John Creedy, 2005. "Taxation, Reranking and Equivalence Scales," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 13-36, January.
    12. Gadenne, Lucie, 2018. "Do Ration Shop Systems Increase Welfare? Theory and an Application to India," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1149, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    13. Carlos Díaz Caro & Jorge Onrubia Fernández, 2014. "Inequidad horizontal en el IRPF dual espanol," Studies on the Spanish Economy eee2014-08, FEDEA.
    14. Nanak Kakwani & Hyun Hwa Son, 2021. "Normative Measures of Tax Progressivity: an International Comparison," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 19(1), pages 185-212, March.
    15. Hellwig, Christian & Werquin, Nicolas, 2022. "A Fair Day's Pay for a Fair Day's Work: Optimal Tax Design as Redistributional Arbitrage," CEPR Discussion Papers 16863, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Luis A. Hierro & Rosario Gómez‐Álvarez & Pedro Atienza, 2014. "A Consistent Decomposition Of The Redistributive, Vertical, And Horizontal Effects Of Health Care Finance By Factor Components," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(1), pages 117-121, January.
    17. Marie-Louise Leroux & Pierre Pestieau & Grégory Ponthière, 2008. "Should we subsidize longevity?," Working Papers halshs-00586236, HAL.
    18. Jing Xing, 2011. "Does tax structure affect economic growth? Empirical evidence from OECD countries," Working Papers 1120, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    19. Stefanie Stantcheva, 2020. "Dynamic Taxation," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 801-831, August.
    20. Alan J. Auerbach, 2006. "The Future of Capital Income Taxation," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 27(4), pages 399-420, December.

    More about this item

    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:bic:opaper:8. 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: Anna Zasova (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.biceps.org .

    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.