Participation Tax Rates Research Articles

Long-Term Participation Tax Rates

Generous income support programs as provided by European welfare states have often been blamed to reduce work incentives for the lowskilled and to increase durations of unemployment. Standard studies measure work incentives based on annual income concepts. This paper analyzes work incentives inherent in the German tax-benefit system when extending the time horizon to three years (long-term). Participation tax rates are computed for 1-year and 3-year periods 1995-1997 and 2005-2007 to reveal potential effects of the labor market and tax reforms between 1999 and 2005. The results show that participation tax rates are significantly lower over a 3- year period pointing at an overestimation of the disincentives by standard measures. Reforms reduced participation tax rates, particularly for singles and low-income individuals.

Viewpoint: Innovations in the theory and practice of redistribution policy

Abstract We present a survey of key results from second‐best optimal redistribution theory and their implications for tax‐transfer policy. The core results include the Corlett‐Hague theorem, the Deaton conditions, the production‐efficiency theorem, the Atkinson‐Stiglitz theorem, and the Mirrlees‐Saez characterization of the optimal non‐linear income tax system. These have been augmented in recent years by optimal participation tax rates, the implications of involuntary unemployment, the use of unconventional instruments, such as minimum wages, in‐kind transfer, and workfare, and the optimal taxation of capital income and bequests.

Do Tax-Benefit Systems Cause High Replacement Rates? A Decompositional Analysis Using EUROMOD

This paper considers using a cross-country microsimulation tax–benefit model for Europe, EUROMOD, to simulate the distribution of replacement rates for six European countries, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK. In particular we show the important role of household composition and the presence of other household members' incomes in preserving the standard of living while out of work compared with the impact of the tax–benefit system. Given this strong influence of primary incomes, replacement rates are not necessarily the best indicator of the impact of the tax–benefit system in this respect. We therefore consider in addition an alternative measure, the participation tax rate.

Tax Policy and Employment: How Does the Swedish System Fare?

This paper reviews the literature on optimal taxation of labour income and the empirical work on labour supply and the elasticity of taxable income in Sweden. It also presents an overview of Swedish taxation of labour income, offers calculations on the development in effective marginal tax rates and participation tax rates, and estimates, using the difference-in-differences method, the impact of tax incentives on employment rates of elderly workers. After this background, we ponder possibilities for reforming the Swedish tax system to improve its labour market impacts. We suggest better targeting the earned income tax credit at families and low-income workers, lowering the top marginal tax rates, and maintaining the tax incentives for older workers.

Regime fiscal, investimento em petróleo e opções reais

The aimof this paper is to evaluate the impact of the Brazilian petroleumfiscal regime - royalties and special participation tax - on the decision to invest in the development of oil and gas reserves in Brazil. We use the Real Option approach, which considers the value of managerial flexibilities. The model admits the option to wait and the option to abandon. It is simulated the impact of different royalties and special participation tax rates on the threshold price-cost ratios to develop the reserve and to exit the industry. Through a Monte Carlo experiment, it is also estimated a path for both prices and costs with the purpose of assessing the expected revenues to the government under each tax rate. Results suggest that special participation tax, despite its ability to increase revenues, is able to distort the decision to invest as much as (or even more than) royalties, which shows that extending this modality of tax, whose discussion was motivated by the just announced pre-salt discoveries, may not be a good initiative.

Welfare Reform in European Countries: A Microsimulation Analysis

This article compares the effects of increasing traditional welfare to introducing in‐work benefits in the 15 (pre‐enlargement) countries of the European Union. We use a labour supply model encompassing responses to taxes and transfers along both the intensive and extensive margins, and the EUROMOD microsimulation model to estimate current marginal and participation tax rates. We quantify the equity‐efficiency trade‐off for a range of elasticity parameters. In most countries, because of large existing welfare programmes with high phase‐out rates, increasing traditional welfare is undesirable unless the redistributive tastes of the government are extreme. In contrast, the in‐work benefit reform is desirable in a very wide set of cases.