IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/pseptp/hal-00813579.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who pays sales taxes? Evidence from French VAT reforms, 1987-1999

Author

Listed:
  • Clément Carbonnier

    (PJSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

Abstract

The point of this paper is to provide visual evidence of tax shifting and to measure empirically the distribution of the sales tax burden between consumers and producers. For that purpose, two French reforms are studied. These reforms entail steep decreases of the VAT rate. September 1st 1987, the VAT rate on car sales went down from the luxury-rate of 33.33% to the full-rate of 18.6%. September 1st 1999, the VAT rate on housing repair services went down from the full-rate of 20.6% to the reduced-rate of 5.5%. The consumer share of the sales tax burden is 57% in the new car sales market and 77% in the housing repair services market.

Suggested Citation

  • Clément Carbonnier, 2007. "Who pays sales taxes? Evidence from French VAT reforms, 1987-1999," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) hal-00813579, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:pseptp:hal-00813579
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2006.12.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Delipalla, Sofia & Keen, Michael, 1992. "The comparison between ad valorem and specific taxation under imperfect competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 351-367, December.
    2. Michael L. Katz & Harvey S. Rosen, 1985. "Tax Analysis in an Oligopoly Model," Public Finance Review, , vol. 13(1), pages 3-20, January.
    3. Clément Carbonnier, 2005. "Is Tax Shifting Asymmetric? Evidence from French VAT reforms, 1995-2000," PSE Working Papers halshs-00590719, HAL.
    4. Clément Carbonnier, 2006. "Who pays commodity taxes? Evidence from French reforms, 1987-1999," Working Papers halshs-00590515, HAL.
    5. Young, Douglas J & Bieli´nska-Kwapisz, Agnieszka, 2002. "Alcohol Taxes and Beverage Prices," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 55(1), pages 57-73, March.
    6. Young, Douglas J & Bieli´nska-Kwapisz, Agnieszka, 2002. "Alcohol Taxes and Beverage Prices," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 55(N. 1), pages 57-73, March.
    7. Seade, Jesus K, 1980. "On the Effects of Entry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(2), pages 479-489, March.
    8. Delipalla, Sophia & O'Donnell, Owen, 2001. "Estimating tax incidence, market power and market conduct: The European cigarette industry," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 885-908, May.
    9. Besley, Timothy J. & Rosen, Harvey S., 1999. "Sales Taxes and Prices: An Empirical Analysis," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 52(2), pages 157-178, June.
    10. Besley, Timothy, 1989. "Commodity taxation and imperfect competition : A note on the effects of entry," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 359-367, December.
    11. Barnett, Paul G. & Keeler, Theodore E. & Hu, Teh-wei, 1995. "Oligopoly structure and the incidence of cigarette excise taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 457-470, July.
    12. Stern, Nicholas, 1987. "The effects of taxation, price control and government contracts in oligopoly and monopolistic competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 133-158, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Clément Carbonnier, 2006. "Who pays commodity taxes? Evidence from French reforms, 1987-1999," PSE Working Papers halshs-00590515, HAL.
    2. Panayiota Lyssiotou & Elena Savva, 2021. "Who pays taxes on basic foodstuffs? Evidence from broadening the VAT base," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(1), pages 212-247, February.
    3. Clément Carbonnier, 2011. "Shifting on prices of per unit and ad valorem consumption taxes, estimation on prices of alcoholic beverages in France," THEMA Working Papers 2011-20, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    4. Clément Carbonnier, 2011. "Shifting on prices of per unit and ad valorem consumption taxes," Working Papers halshs-00872477, HAL.
    5. Finkelstein, Eric A. & Zhen, Chen & Bilger, Marcel & Nonnemaker, James & Farooqui, Assad M. & Todd, Jessica E., 2013. "Implications of a sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) tax when substitutions to non-beverage items are considered," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 219-239.
    6. Jacquelyn Pless & Arthur A. van Benthem, 2019. "Pass-Through as a Test for Market Power: An Application to Solar Subsidies," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 367-401, October.
    7. Devereux, Michael P. & Lanot, Gauthier, 2003. "Measuring tax incidence: an application to mortgage provision in the UK," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1747-1778, August.
    8. Pranvera Shehaj & Martin Zagler, 2023. "Motor Vehicle Registration Taxes (MVRT) across EU countries: MNEs’ profitability and the role of market concentration," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 155-198, August.
    9. Fullerton, Don & Metcalf, Gilbert E., 2002. "Tax incidence," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 26, pages 1787-1872, Elsevier.
    10. Asatryan, Zareh & Gomtsyan, David, 2020. "The incidence of VAT evasion," ZEW Discussion Papers 20-027, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    11. Nicoletta Berardi & Patrick Sevestre & Marine Tépaut & Alexandre Vigneron, 2016. "The impact of a ‘soda tax’ on prices: evidence from French micro data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(41), pages 3976-3994, September.
    12. Chouinard, Hayley & Perloff, Jeffrey M., 2004. "Incidence of federal and state gasoline taxes," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 55-60, April.
    13. Richard Blundell, 2009. "Assessing the Temporary VAT Cut Policy in the UK," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(1), pages 31-38, March.
    14. Bonnet, Céline & Réquillart, Vincent, 2013. "Tax incidence with strategic firms in the soft drink market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 77-88.
    15. Carbonnier, Clément, 2014. "The incidence of non-linear price-dependent consumption taxes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 111-119.
    16. Martin Peitz & Markus Reisinger, 2014. "Indirect Taxation in Vertical Oligopoly," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(4), pages 709-755, December.
    17. Donald S. Kenkel, 2005. "Are Alcohol Tax Hikes Fully Passed Through to Prices? Evidence from Alaska," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 273-277, May.
    18. Anderson, Simon P. & de Palma, Andre & Kreider, Brent, 2001. "Tax incidence in differentiated product oligopoly," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 173-192, August.
    19. Clément Carbonnier, 2005. "Is Tax Shifting Asymmetric? Evidence from French VAT reforms, 1995-2000," Working Papers halshs-00590719, HAL.
    20. Asker, John, 2008. "Subsidizing (and taxing) business procurement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(7), pages 1629-1643, July.

    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:hal:pseptp:hal-00813579. 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: Caroline Bauer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.