Tax Unit Research Articles

소득세와 종합부동산세의 부부합산과세제도 도입방안

현재 우리나라의 세제는 대부분의 세목에 있어서 개인별 과세를 대전제로 하고 있다. 하지만 많은 세목에서 부분적으로 부부 혹은 세대를 과세단위로 활용하고 있기도 하다. 과세단위의 문제는 개별 납세자에게는 세부담의 변경을 초래하고 과세당국 입장에서는 세수의 변동을 초래하는 문제로만 주로 인식을 한다. 하지만 그 보다는 조세제도의 합리화라는 측면에서 과세단위를 바라보는 것이 더 중요하다고 할 수 있다. 예컨대, 현재 종부세의 경우에도 주택을 배우자의 단독소유로 보유한 경우와 공동명의로 소유한 경우에 따라 세부담이 차이가 나서 논란이 되고 있다. 과연 양자의 경우에 세부담에 차등을 두어야 할 실질적인 이유가 있을 것인가에 대해 회의적인 시각이 강하다.<BR> 이 글은 이러한 측면에서 소득세와 종합부동산세를 전제로 하여 부부합산과세제도를 어떻게 도입할 수 있을지에 대해 검토해 보았다. 이 두 세목은 과거 일정한 범위의 가족을 합산하여 과세하는 제도를 도입한 경험이 있는 공통점이 있다. 헌법재판소는 입법자가 이러한 합산과세제도를 도입한 입법목적의 정당성은 긍정하면서도 구체적인 합산과 세방법이 헌법 제36조 제 1 항의 정신에 부합한지 않는다고 보아 위헌 혹은 불합치판결을 하였다. 헌재가 입법목적의 정당성을 긍정하였으므로 비록 이러한 헌재결정이 있었더라도 입법자는 합산과세 자체를 포기할 것이 아니라 합산과세를 하되 구체적인 합산과세방법을 헌재결정의 취지에 부합하도록 수정하였어야 한다. 과거 우리가 경험한 합산과세제도는 모두 단순합산과세제도이었으므로 합산과세를 하는 외국의 경우처럼 합산에 따른 세부담 증가를 조정해주는 제도를 도입하면 헌법 제36조 제 1 항과의 충돌을 피할 수 있는 것이다. 그러나 입법자는 합산과세제도 자체를 포기하는 방식으로 입법을 하였다. 입법자가 합산과세를 포기하고 개인별 과세를 도입하였지만 조세회피방지 등의 측면에서 소득세와 종합부동산세 모두 개인별 과세가 적절치 않은 측면이 노출되고 있다. 바로 그러한 문제점 때문에 미국과 독일 그리고 프랑스 등 외국의 경우 가족합산과 세제도를 소득세에 도입하고 있고, 독일과 프랑스의 경우에는 보유세에도 합산과세를 도입하고 있는 것으로 판단된다.<BR> 이러한 점에 입각하여 이 글에서는 소득세와 종합부동산세 있어서 부부합산과세제도를 도입한다고 할 때 어떤 방안으로 도입해야 할지 나름의 의견을 제시해보았다. 과세단위를 현재처럼 개인별 과세에서 부부합산과세로 전환하게 되면 다수의 제도를 함께 수정해야 한다. 하지만 이 글에서는 지면의 제한으로 모든 관련 제도에 대한 검토를 하지는 못하였다. 일단 이 글은 소득세와 종합부동산세의 과세단위를 함께 변경해야 하는 이유를 제시하고 합산과세의 큰 방향을 제시해보는 것으로 그 목적을 한정하였다. 이 글이 계기가 되어 우리나라에서 다시 한 번 과세단위의 변경에 대한 논의가 진지하게 이루어 지기를 기대해 본다.

First-time mothers and the labor market effects of the earned income tax credit

Abstract The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is one of the largest anti-poverty programs in the United States, providing over $67 billion to more than 27 million families for the tax year 2016, an average of $2,455. By subsidizing the earnings of low-income workers, the EITC reduces poverty both directly through the credit itself and indirectly through labor supply incentives. The two primary determinants of the amount a tax unit receives are earned income and number of children. Many studies define eligibility based on the presence of children in a household and separate analyses by marital status, a reflection of the fundamentally different incentives the EITC poses for single- and dual-earner households. However, as the EITC theoretically encourages fertility and generally discourages marriage, endogenous responses along these two dimensions could bias estimates which rely on them for identification and sample selection. In this paper, I revisit the classic question of the EITC’s labor market effects while exploiting a source of arguably exogenous variation in EITC receipt that does not rely on these potentially endogenous characteristics: birth timing around the end of the calendar year. Using the Survey of Income and Program Participation, my results show positive earnings and employment effects for unmarried women in the 12 months following their first/only child’s birth, including for those with a high school degree or less (low-ed). Overall, the results are usually small and insignificant for married women, with the exception of negative (and sometimes significant) effects on earnings for low-ed married women. Using a difference-in-discontinuities approach, I separate the income effect of the credit itself from the information effect, which, I argue, occurs when women receive the EITC for the first time. I show that, while the income effect is negative across all groups of women, the information effects are positive for unmarried women and negative for married women, again consistent with theory and the body of evidence on the EITC.

Income modeling with the Weibull mixtures

In this paper, we introduce six Weibull based mixture distributions to model income data. Several statistical properties of these models are derived and their closed forms are presented. The mixture model parameters are estimated using the maximum likelihood method and their performances are assessed with respect to average income per tax unit data for ten countries using information based criteria approaches as well as graphical observations. In addition, we provide application of these models to two popular inequality measures, the Gini and Bonferroni indexes as well as the common generalized entropy index. Analytic expressions of the poverty measures are given for head-count ratio and poverty-gap ratio. All the mixture models show good fit to the data with close proximity to empirical Gini and Bonferroni indexes in almost all ten countries where the income data sets are studied.

Top Incomes in Ireland: Reconciling Evidence from Tax Records and Household Survey Data

There are two main sources of data on income distribution. Household based surveys report mainly on inequality in equivalised household level disposable income. Top income shares, on the other hand, focus on the tax unit as the unit of analysis, because administrative records are obtained from such units. Tax return data is typically analysed in terms of unequvalised fiscal income and obtains better coverage of those at the very top of the income distribution. In this paper, we find that differences in concepts and measures play a very substantial role in accounting for the divergence in the pictures of inequality arising from household and tax return data. Estimates of the share of the top 10% of tax units in fiscal income from the two sources are quite close. Average incomes for the top 1% of the population appear to be substantially higher in tax return data than in SILC - a pattern that has often been observed internationally. We conclude that there is a strong case for examining potential adjustments to survey data to ensure better representation of income levels at the very top of the income distribution.

The Accuracy of Tax Imputations: Estimating Tax Liabilities and Credits Using Linked Survey and Administrative Data

This paper calculates accurate estimates of income and payroll taxes using a groundbreaking set of linked survey and administrative tax data that are part of the Comprehensive Income Dataset (CID). We compare our estimates to survey imputations produced by the Census Bureau and those generated using the TAXSIM calculator from the National Bureau of Economic Research. The administrative data include two sets of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data: (1) a limited set of tax information for the population of individual income tax returns covering selected line items from Forms 1040, W-2, and 1099-R; and (2) an extensive set of population tax records processed by the IRS in 2011, covering nearly every line item on Form 1040 and most lines on a series of third-party information returns. We link these IRS records to the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS) for reference year 2010. We describe how we form tax units and estimate various types of tax liabilities and credits using these linked data, providing a roadmap for constructing accurate measures of taxes while preserving the survey family as the sharing unit for distributional analyses. We find that aggregate estimates of various tax components using the limited and extensive tax data estimates are close to each other and much closer to public IRS tabulations than either of the imputations using survey data alone. At the individual level, the absolute errors of survey-only imputations of federal income taxes and total taxes are on average 10% and 13%, respectively, of adjusted gross income. In contrast, the limited tax data imputations yield mean absolute errors for federal income taxes and total taxes that are about 2% and 3% of adjusted gross income, respectively. For the Earned Income Tax Credit, the limited tax data imputation is off by less than $20 on average for a typical family (compared to more than $500 using either of the survey-only imputations).

Критерии анализа показателей бухгалтерской отчетности при выявлении налоговых правонарушений (преступлений)

The article discusses the indicators of accounting and tax reporting as criteria that need to be analyzed by employees of tax authorities or units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia when conducting documentary studies to identify and disclose signs or traces of tax offenses (crimes).

Household Incomes in Tax Data

Tax return data are increasingly the standard for tracking income statistics in the United States. However, these data have traditionally been limited by their inability to capture non-filers and to identify members of separate tax units living in the same household. We overcome these obstacles and create household records directly in the tax data using mailing address information included on tax forms. We then present the first set of tax-based household income and inequality measures for the entire income distribution. When comparing household income inequality results in the tax data to those using the March CPS, we confirm previous findings that the March CPS understates the inequality of household income. However, we also find that the previous approach of using tax units in the IRS data to proxy for households leads to an overstatement of household income inequality. Finally, using households in the IRS tax records, we illustrate how focusing on tax units rather than households alters the observed distribution of tax programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit.

A Different Perspective on the Evolution of UK Income Inequality

This paper scrutinizes the conventional wisdom about trends in UK income inequality and also places contemporary inequality in a much longer historical perspective. We combine household survey and income tax data to provide better coverage of all income ranges from the bottom to the very top (and make our estimates available to other researchers). We make a case for studying distributions of income between tax units (i.e. not assuming the full income sharing that goes with the use of the household as the unit of analysis) for reasons of principle as well as data harmonization. We present evidence that income inequality in the UK is as least as high today as it was just before the start of World War 2.

Income Growth and its Distribution from Eisenhower to Obama: The Growing Importance of In-Kind Transfers (1959-2016)

Using Census Bureau estimates of the market value of in-kind transfers and Current Population Survey (ASEC-CPS) data over the period 1979 to 2007, Burkhauser et al. (2012b) construct measures of income and its distribution. We extend their work forward to 2016 and back to 1967 using ASEC-CPS data and decennial Census data for 1959. With this newly linked data set, we provide a fresh look at the twenty-year period 1959 to 1979 that encompasses the inauguration of New Frontier and Great Society programs as well as the first survey-based look at levels and trends in income and its distribution from 1959 to 2016. We find that the dramatic decline in the market income of the middle class (measured as the median American tax unit or the mean value of the middle quintile of American tax units) began in 1969. However, we find that this decline was more than offset by government tax and transfer programs—especially in-kind transfers. Conventional measures of median income and income inequality that exclude the market value of in-kind transfers will substantially understate the impact of government policies in offsetting the stagnation of median market income growth and the rise in market income inequality since 1969.

How mohallas were formed: Typology of mohallas from the viewpoint of spatial formation and the urbanization process in Varanasi, India

AbstractThis paper focuses upon some mohallas in Varanasi's old urban area. The mohalla is a traditional neighborhood unit common in North Indian cities. Mohallas were elemental components of the city in the Mughal period as administrative tax units as well as autonomous organizations. Currently, however, they have lost their administrative meaning, and their geographical extent and boundaries are becoming unclear. Based on field surveys, this paper reveals features of the spatial formation of mohallas such as size, boundary form, distribution of facilities, and street pattern, and links them to the historical urbanization process of the city. Mohallas in Varanasi can be broadly classified into two types. One has a linear or tree shape along streets, and the other has a broad territorial shape. The spatial features of those two types are different in various aspects and reflect the degree of urbanization at the time when the mohallas were established.

THE EFFECT OF FLAT TAX RATES ON TAXABLE INCOME

The state of Illinois temporarily increased its flat individual income tax rate from 2011 to 2014. This paper evaluates taxpayer responses following the rate increase and subsequent decrease using a synthetic control matching strategy with data from the American Community Survey. The analysis shows Illinois taxable income declined following the tax increase with significant income retiming in anticipation of the sunset of the elevated rate in 2015. The identified responses were driven by tax units in the top decile of the income distribution.

Big Data in Ottoman Urban Studies: A Relational Approach to the Archival Data and to Socio-Spatial Analyses of an Early Modern Ottoman City

This paper focuses on two basic archival sources of Ottoman urban history: avârız tax surveys and surety surveys of Edirne in the second half of the seventeenth century. These tax and surety surveys, which are abundant in the Ottoman archives, contain rich information on the residents of Ottoman cities, including names, titles, occupation, gender, religion, property status and numbers of tax units (avârızhane). All this information is given on the basis of the mahalle (neighborhood), which provides a practical point of departure for “reading” the Ottoman city. Each register contains approximately 10,000 household heads, with about 10 different attributes listed for each of them. In addition, the data contain some numerical information (e.g., numbers of tax units), although a majority of it is nominal. While some types of nominal data, like religion and gender, comprise only a few possible variants and can thus be analyzed without further classification, others, such as occupation data, contain hundreds, and thus cannot be analyzed without clustering them. In analyzing the data, the distribution of each attribute in the city and its density in an urban space (scaling) can be presented in the form of ratios. One may perform these analyses in the first stage with conventional statistical methods. However, this study attempts for the first time to achieve two further goals: connecting the data types to each other; and highlighting the distinguishing differences among the mahalles using the methods of hierarchical clustering, correspondence analysis, and creating maps by geographic information systems (GIS) applications—none of which is possible with conventional methods. Such an exploration suits both the relational approach I am trying to advocate here—namely, that all elements in the city must be understood in relation to one another—and my effort to lay out the general features of the Ottoman city. This approach will allow us to see how these attributes are spatially distributed based solely on the guidance provided by the big data available in the sources. In this context, I explore the topographical similarities of the mahalles on the one hand, and the socio-economic features and structures of attribute profiles via the scale of their “corresponding distances” on the other. These topographical vicinities and socio-spatial neighbors resemble and do not resemble each other in the city. This paper discusses the processes, challenges and possible contributions of the application of big data to urban historical studies.

Communicating the Vision: How Face‐to‐Face Dialogue Facilitates Transformational Leadership

Abstract For public managers facing political and structural constraints, transformational leadership promises to meaningfully improve outcomes by communicating an inspiring vision of the organization. But this promise rests to a great degree on the communication skills and behaviors of the leader. A better understanding of how transformational leadership functions in organizations therefore requires a deeper application of theory from the field of communications. This article explores the question of what communication behaviors facilitate transformational leadership. A media richness framework is applied to propose that transformational leaders will be most effective when employing a face‐to‐face dialogue approach to communication. Using a multisource longitudinal research design, the authors find support for this proposition in an empirical test of 256 Danish tax units, lower and upper secondary schools, child care centers, and bank branches. The findings also show that size matters, with diminishing effectiveness of face‐to‐face dialogue in larger organizations.

A Different Perspective on the Evolution of UK Income Inequality

This paper scrutinizes the conventional wisdom about trends in UK income inequality and also places contemporary inequality in a much longer historical perspective. We combine household survey and income tax data to provide better coverage of all income ranges from the bottom to the very top (and make our estimates available to other researchers). We make a case for studying distributions of income between tax units (i.e. not assuming the full income sharing that goes with the use of the household as the unit of analysis) for reasons of principle as well as data harmonization. We present evidence that income inequality in the UK is as least as high today as it was just before the start of World War 2.

Top Income Inequality in the 21st Century: Some Cautionary Notes

We revisit recent empirical evidence about the rise in top income inequality in the United States, drawing attention to key issues that we believe are critical for an informed discussion about changing inequality since 1980: the definition of income (labor versus total), the unit of analysis (individual versus tax unit), the importance of partnership and S-corporation income, income shifting between the corporate and personal sectors in response to tax incentives, the definition of the top of the distribution, and trends in the middle and bottom of the distribution. Our goal is to inform researchers, policymakers, and journalists who are interested in top income inequality.

Whose Child Is This? Shifting of Dependents Among EITC Claimants Within the Same Household

Using a panel of household level tax data, we estimate the degree to which dependents are "reassigned" between tax units within households, and how these reassignments affect combined tax liabilities. Reassigning dependents reduces combined tax liabilities on average, suggesting some household level coordination. Additionally, when EITC benefits expanded in 2009, reassignments increasingly involved adding a third child to tax returns to claim these new benefits. However, the subgroup reassigning towards three child tax units actually increased total household tax liabilities, suggesting that some taxpayers may prioritize minimizing their own tax burden or focus on particularly salient aspects of tax policy.

WHOSE CHILD IS THIS? SHIFTING OF DEPENDENTS AMONG EITC CLAIMANTS WITHIN THE SAME HOUSEHOLD

Using a panel of household level tax data, we estimate the degree to which dependents are “reassigned” between tax units within the same household, and how these reassignments affect combined tax l...

Household Incomes in Tax Data: Using Addresses to Move from Tax Unit to Household Income Distributions

Tax return data are increasingly the standard for tracking income statistics in the United States. However, these data have traditionally been limited by their inability to capture non-filers and to identify members of separate tax units living in the same household. We overcome these obstacles and create household records directly in the tax data using mailing address information included on tax forms. We then present the first set of tax-based household income and inequality measures for the entire income distribution. When comparing household income inequality results in the tax data to those using the March CPS, we confirm previous findings that the March CPS understates the inequality of household income. However, we also find that the previous approach of using tax units in the IRS data to proxy for households leads to an overstatement of household income inequality. Finally, using households in the IRS tax records, we illustrate how focusing on tax units rather than households alters the observed distribution of tax programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit.

String Matching Techniques: An Empirical Assessment Based on Statistics Austria's Business Register

The maintenance and updating of Statistics Austria's business register requires a regularly matching of the register against other data sources; one of them is the register of tax units of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance. The matching process is based on string comparison via bigrams of enterprise names and addresses, and a quality class approach assigning pairs of register units into classes of different compliance (i.e., matching quality) based on bigram similarity values and the comparison of other matching variables, like the NACE code or the year of foundation.Based on methodological research concerning matching techniques carried out in the DIECOFIS project, an empirical comparison of the bigram method and other string matching techniques was conducted: the edit distance, the Jaro algorithm and the Jaro-Winkler algorithm, the longest common subsequence and the maximal match were selected as appropriate alternatives and evaluated in the study.This paper briey introduces Statistics Austria's business register and the corresponding maintenance process and reports on the results of the empirical study.

浅谈公平视角下家庭为纳税单位的改革

我国历次个人所得税改革的重心是提高免征额和完善超额累进税率，尚未从纳税单位上改革。本文比较了个人为纳税单位和家庭为纳税单位两种不同纳税单位模式的优缺点，探讨了我国当前的国情，分析改革纳税模式的迫切性与可行性，分析了推行以家庭为纳税单位可能面临的障碍及应对措施。 The focus of reform in Chinese personal income tax exemption has been to raise the Exemption Amount and perfect the Over Progressive Tax Rate, but not yet reform on the tax unit. This paper compares the advantages and disadvantages of two different tax unit models, which take individual and family as the tax unit respectively, discusses the urgency and feasibility of the reform of taxation model in our country’s current situation, and analyzes the barriers and their countermeasures to pursue the family tax unit.