IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/idb/brikps/4548.html

VAT Collection and Social Security Contributions: Is There a Link?

Author

Listed:
  • Antón-Sarabia, Arturo
  • Hernández, Fausto

Abstract

Mexican public finances are weak; national tax collection as a percentage of GDP is among the lowest in the world. On the other hand, expenditure needs are enormous. There have been several attempts to reform our tax system but they have not been successful due to different factors such as political interests, excess of oil revenues, and deficient design of the reforms. One of the most important problems is that every reform has been attempted with no significant change on the expenditure side, or what is more, ignoring links between taxes and other economic areas such as social security contributions. Recently Levy (2008) has proposed a major change on the expenditure side. In particular he argues that social policy should dramatically be modified to be able to provide a universal health care system together with unemployment insurance, which at the end would promote formality. This calls for an adequate financial source. In this work we estimate the potential VAT collection to finance this proposal, taking into account some partial equilibrium effects in a context of coexistence of formality and informality. Here the former is defined in terms of tax compliance only.

Suggested Citation

  • Antón-Sarabia, Arturo & Hernández, Fausto, 2010. "VAT Collection and Social Security Contributions: Is There a Link?," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 4548, Inter-American Development Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:idb:brikps:4548
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://publications.iadb.org/publications/english/document/VAT-Collection-and-Social-Security-Contributions-Is-There-a-Link.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fortin, Bernard & Marceau, Nicolas & Savard, Luc, 1997. "Taxation, wage controls and the informal sector," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 293-312, November.
    2. Nezih Guner & Gustavo Ventura & Xu Yi, 2008. "Macroeconomic Implications of Size-Dependent Policies," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(4), pages 721-744, October.
    3. Erard, Brian & Feinstein, Jonathan S, 1994. "The Role of Moral Sentiments and Audit Perceptions in Tax Compliance," Public Finance = Finances publiques, , vol. 49(Supplemen), pages 70-89.
    4. Enrique G. Mandoza & Vivian Z. Yue, 2008. "A solution to the default risk-business cycle disconnect," International Finance Discussion Papers 924, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Peter J. Klenow, 2009. "Misallocation and Manufacturing TFP in China and India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1403-1448.
    6. Keen, Michael & Smith, Stephen, 2006. "VAT Fraud and Evasion: What Do We Know and What Can Be Done?," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 59(4), pages 861-887, December.
    7. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 1978. "On the Size Distribution of Business Firms," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(2), pages 508-523, Autumn.
    8. Diego Restuccia & Richard Rogerson, 2008. "Policy Distortions and Aggregate Productivity with Heterogeneous Plants," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(4), pages 707-720, October.
    9. Agha, Ali & Haughton, Jonathan, 1996. "Designing VAT Systems: Some Efficiency Considerations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(2), pages 303-308, May.
    10. Gollin, Douglas, 1995. "Do Taxes on Large Firms Impede Growth? Evidence from Ghana," Bulletins 7488, University of Minnesota, Economic Development Center.
    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. Arturo Antón-Sarabia & Fausto Hernández-Trillo, 2010. "VAT Collection and Social Security Contributions under Tax Evasion: Is There a Link?," Working Papers DTE 480, CIDE, División de Economía.
    2. Julio Cesar Leal Ordonez, 2014. "Tax collection, the informal sector, and productivity," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(2), pages 262-286, April.
    3. Leal-Ordoñez Julio C., 2014. "The informal sector in contemporary models of the aggregate economy," Working Papers 2014-24, Banco de México.
    4. Leal Ordóñez, Julio C., 2010. "Informal sector, productivity, and tax collection," MPRA Paper 26058, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Oct 2010.
    5. Lopez-Martin, Bernabe, 2019. "Informal Sector Misallocation," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(8), pages 3065-3098, December.
    6. Nezih Guner & Gustavo Ventura & Xu Yi, 2008. "Macroeconomic Implications of Size-Dependent Policies," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(4), pages 721-744, October.
    7. Nazim Tamkoc, 2024. "Fading Away Informality by Development," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10956, The World Bank.
    8. François Gourio & Nicolas Roys, 2014. "Size‐dependent regulations, firm size distribution, and reallocation," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 5, pages 377-416, July.
    9. Jose Joaquin Lopez & Jesica Torres, 2020. "Size-dependent policies, talent misallocation, and the return to skill," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 38, pages 59-93, October.
    10. Bento, Pedro & Restuccia, Diego, 2021. "On average establishment size across sectors and countries," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 220-242.
    11. Tamkoç, M. Nazım, 2024. "Bribery, plant size and size dependent distortions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    12. Franz Hamann & Fernando Arias-Rodr�guez & Jesus Bejarano & Margarita Gafaro & Juan C. Mendez-Vizcaino & Andrea Paola Poveda-Olarte, 2019. "Productividad total de los factores y eficiencia en el uso de los recursos productivos en Colombia," Revista ESPE - Ensayos Sobre Política Económica, Banco de la República, issue 89, pages 1-54.
    13. Luis Garicano & Claire Lelarge & John Van Reenen, 2016. "Firm Size Distortions and the Productivity Distribution: Evidence from France," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(11), pages 3439-3479, November.
    14. Miguel Angel, 2023. "Differences in the labor market by gender and aggregate income," Sobre México. Revista de Economía, Sobre México. Temas en economía, vol. 1(7), pages 84-114.
    15. Simon Gilchrist & Jae W. Sim & Egon Zakrajsek, 2013. "Misallocation and Financial Market Frictions: Some Direct Evidence from the Dispersion in Borrowing Costs," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(1), pages 159-176, January.
    16. Stephen Ayerst & Loren Brandt & Diego Restuccia, 2023. "Distortions, Producer Dynamics, and Aggregate Productivity: A General Equilibrium Analysis," Working Papers tecipa-754, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    17. Tasso Adamopoulos & Diego Restuccia, 2020. "Land Reform and Productivity: A Quantitative Analysis with Micro Data," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 1-39, July.
    18. Kuehn, Zoe, 2012. "Migration, Wages, and Parental Background: Obstacles to Entrepreneurship and Growth in East Germany," MPRA Paper 49250, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Gabriel Smagghue, 2021. "Heterogeneous Policy Distortions and the Labor Share," Working papers 803, Banque de France.
    20. Boese-Schlosser, Vanessa A. & Eberhardt, Markus, 2024. "Democracy Doesn’t Always Happen Over Night: Regime Change in Stages and Economic Growth," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Forthcomi, pages 1-29.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • I13 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Insurance, Public and Private

    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:idb:brikps:4548. 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: Felipe Herrera Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iadbbus.html .

    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.