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Effective Corporate Taxation, Tax Incidence and Tax Reforms: Evidence from OECD Countries

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  • Salvador Barrios
  • Gaëtan J.A. Nicodème
  • Antonio Jesus Sanchez Fuentes
  • Gaëtan J.A. Nicodeme

Abstract

The present study provides estimates of the Effective Marginal Tax Rates (EMTRs) for a sample of 17 OECD countries and 11 manufacturing sectors in a single framework encompassing capital, labour and energy taxes. Our cross-country/cross-sector approach allows us comparing the incentives provided by the tax systems and gauging the effects of tax changes taking explicitly into account the possible substitution between factors as well as their tax incidence. Our results suggest that the OECD tax systems provide different incentives for manufacturing activity across countries and that tax systems are relatively neutral with respect to the sectoral composition of manufacturing activities. The impact of potential tax increases on firms´ activity is found to be most attenuated when shifted towards consumers and/or employees rather than energy consumption and/or capital investors. These results are robust to alternative hypotheses regarding the tax incidence parameters, elasticity of substitution between factors and mark-up on final prices. In addition, policy strategies favouring tax increases on energy consumption and lowering taxes on labour can substantially reduce the EMTRs and thus yield substantial efficiency gains for firms. These reforms should in some instances be ambitious enough to produce desired effects on firms’ EMTRs, however.

Suggested Citation

  • Salvador Barrios & Gaëtan J.A. Nicodème & Antonio Jesus Sanchez Fuentes & Gaëtan J.A. Nicodeme, 2014. "Effective Corporate Taxation, Tax Incidence and Tax Reforms: Evidence from OECD Countries," CESifo Working Paper Series 5017, CESifo.
  • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5017
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    Cited by:

    1. Bawa, Siraj, 2017. "Corporate Taxation in the Open Economy without Pareto," MPRA Paper 80857, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Aug 2017.
    2. Luigi Bernardi, 2016. "2014-2015 tax changes in EU Member States vs the Commission’s tax policy recommendations," Working papers 46, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    3. Milena Mathé & Gaetan Nicodeme & Savino Rua, 2015. "Tax shifts," Taxation Papers 59, Directorate General Taxation and Customs Union, European Commission.
    4. Alena Andrejovska & Veronika Pulikova, 2018. "Tax Revenues in the Context of Economic Determinants," Montenegrin Journal of Economics, Economic Laboratory for Transition Research (ELIT), vol. 14(1), pages 133-141.
    5. Olgica Glavaški & Emilija Beker Pucar & Marina Beljić & Stefan Stojkov, 2022. "Coordination vs. Competitiveness of Effective Average Tax Rates in Relation to FDI: The Case of Emerging EU Economies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-20, December.
    6. Alena Andrejovska, 2019. "Effective Tax Rate in the Context of the Economic Determinants," Montenegrin Journal of Economics, Economic Laboratory for Transition Research (ELIT), vol. 15(2), pages 31-40.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    taxation; tax incidence; effective taxation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • H22 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Incidence
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies

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