La carga tributaria sobre los ingresos laborales y de capital en Colombia: el caso del impuesto sobre la renta y el IVA

This paper estimates the size and incidence of the tax burden on workers and owners of capital in Colombia during the period 2000-2014. The tax burden is measured by aggregate effective rates, which relate tax revenue, in this case from the income tax and the VAT, to the workers' and owners' ability to pay. The results indicate that, for most of the period of analysis, labor income bore a higher effective rate than capital income, although the gap has tended to close. Generally, the redistributive effect would have been counterproductive for equity purposes (on one occasion, insignificant). The exercise suggests that in order to improve the distribution of the tax burden, it is more important to pay attention to the taxpayers' ability to pay, rather than giving unequal treatment to the factorial sources of income.