Suchergebnisse

Dada la capacidad normativa de que disponen las CCAA de régimen común y foral en el IRPF, ¿puede aumentar la descentralización fiscal el bienestar social? Para valorarlo, nos centramos en un elemento legal paradigmático: el tipo marginal máximo que aplica sobre la renta laboral. Utilizando el instrumental que nos ofrece la teoría de la imposición óptima (Saez, 2001), comparamos – a partir de micro-datos de la Encuesta de condiciones de vida (INE) – los tipos reales con los óptimos. Obtenemos que existen, para todas las CCAA, discrepancias; estando siempre los marginales óptimos por encima de los reales. La discrepancia promedio es de 10 puntos porcentuales (p.p.), resultado máxima (mínima) para la CA de Madrid (Navarra), 23 (2) p.p. Eso sí, partiendo del tipo que resulta de la ausencia de actividad legislativa por parte de los gobiernos subcentrales, excepto cuatro CCAA, todas han aproximado los marginales hacia "su" óptimo. ; Given the tax power in hands of the Autonomous Communities (ACs) in the PIT, we wonder whether decentralization might be welfare-enhancing. To asses this, we focus on a paradigmatic legal element: the top marginal tax rate on labor income. Taking advantage of the theoretical framework of the recent optimal tax theory (Saez, 2001), we compare – from microdata of the Survey of Life Conditions (conducted by the Spanish National Statistical Institute – the real rates with the optimal ones. There is a discrepancy for all ACs; being for all of them the optimal rate above the real one. The average discrepancy is 10 percentage points (p.p.), being maximum (minimum) for the AC of (Navarre), 23 (2) p.p. In any case, taking the tax rate in absence of subcentral legislative action as the benchmark, all but four ACs have set their tax rate closing the gap with "their" optimum.

Dada la capacidad normativa de que disponen las CCAA de régimen común y foral en el IRPF, ¿puede aumentar la descentralización fiscal el bienestar social? Para valorarlo, nos centramos en un elemento legal paradigmático: el tipo marginal máximo que aplica sobre la renta laboral. Utilizando el instrumental que nos ofrece la teoría de la imposición óptima (Saez, 2001), comparamos - a partir de micro-datos de la Encuesta de condiciones de vida (INE) - los tipos reales con los óptimos. Obtenemos que existen, para todas las CCAA, discrepancias; estando siempre los marginales óptimos por encima de los reales. La discrepancia promedio es de 10 puntos porcentuales (p.p.), resultado máxima (mínima) para la CA de Madrid (Navarra), 23 (2) p.p. Eso sí, partiendo del tipo que resulta de la ausencia de actividad legislativa por parte de los gobiernos subcentrales, excepto cuatro CCAA, todas han aproximado los marginales hacia su óptimo.

Trust in the justice administration conditions the sustainability of the very rule of law, and can even promote interpersonal trust and, hence, social capital. Inferring its determinants, which is what I seek to do for the Spanish case, is therefore of paramount importance. I find that the level of trust is dependent on the economic cycle (with evidence of anticyclicality) and independent of whether the service provision is decentralized. These outcomes suggest that citizens expect the justice administration to play a positive role in insuring them against a negative economic shock, unless the economic downturn is particularly marked, while they do not expect—independently of the state of the economy—decentralization to improve performance (or are unaware of which tier of government is responsible for its provision). Finally, we obtain indirect evidence that trust would be strengthened if the resolution rate in the civil jurisdiction were to increase substantially (by around 25%), while in the criminal jurisdiction this margin of improvement is moderate.

This paper offers empirical evidence from Spain of a connection between the tax administration and the political power. Firstly, the regional tax administration is not immune to the budgetary situation of regional government, and tends to exert a greater (or lesser) effort in tax collection the greater (or lower) the (expected) public deficit. At the same time, the system of unconditional grants from the central layer of government provokes an ¿income effect¿ which disincentivises the efforts of the tax administration. Secondly, these efforts also decrease when the margin to lose a parliamentary seat in an electoral district is cut, although the importance of this disincentive decreases according to the parliamentary strength of the incumbent ; - Aquest article oferix proves empíriques d'Espanya d'una connexió entre l'administració fiscal i el poder polític. En primer lloc, l'administració regional fiscal no és immune a la situació pressupostària de govern regional, i tendeix a exercir un major (o menor) l'esforç en la col·lecció fiscal el major (o més baix) el dèficit (esperat) públic. Al mateix temps, el sistema de subvencions incondicionals de la capa central de govern provoca " un efecte d'ingrés " que el desànim es disminuïx segons la força parlamentària de l'encarregat.

We test for the state interdependence of gasoline and cigarette taxation in the US (1975-2006). We estimate a tax reaction function, and find that state interdependence is due solely to yardstick competition, since any interaction disappears completely in the case of states with lame duck governors. This result holds for both taxes: the short-run reaction of those states whose governor is eligible to stand for reelection is 0.13 and 0.21 for gasoline and cigarette taxation, respectively. In the long run, the cigarette tax rates levied in a jurisdiction match those of its neighbors perfectly, while the long-run reaction in the case of gasoline is much lower at 0.72.

The well-known "Decentralization Theorem" (Oates, 1972) establishes the superiority of decentralized public provision over the centralized case, which is not so sensitive to the diversity of expenditure needs among territories. We test this hypothesis using a unique Spanish database that provides information on road and educational infrastructure investment and capital stocks by region both before and after the decentralization of such responsibilities. We find that investment in both categories is much more sensitive to regional output and to infrastructure users and costs when sub-central governments have the responsibility over such services.

In a decentralised tax system, the effects of tax policies enacted by one government are not confined to its own jurisdiction. First, if the tax base is mobile, tax rate increases by one regional government will raise the amount of taxes collected by other regional governments (horizontal tax externality). Second, if both the regional and the federal levels of government co-occupy the same fields of taxation, tax rate increases by one layer of government will reduce taxes collected by the other (vertical tax externality). Third, as Smart (1998) shows, if equalisation transfers are present, an increase in the standard equalisation tax rate provides incentives to raise taxes to the receiving provinces. In order to check the empirical relevance of these hypotheses, this paper estimates provincial tax setting functions with data on Canadian personal income taxation for the period 1982- 96. We find a significant positive response of provincial tax rates to changes in the federal income tax rate, the tax rates of competing provinces, and the standard equalisation rate (only for receiving provinces). We also find that the reaction to horizontal competition is stronger in the provinces that do not receive equalisation transfers.

Concurrent taxation is a feature of many federal systems. As a result, the tax policy of one level of government affects the tax base of the other. A way to check the empirical relevance of this hypothesis is to test for the existence of interdependencies in the tax setting behaviour of various layers of government. Following this approach, this paper estimates the reaction of U.S. state personal income and general sales taxes to federal tax rates, taking into account the special features of the U.S. tax system. We find that when the federal government increases taxes, there is a significant positive response of state taxes.

Abstract
There is growing debate, both social and academic, about the possibility of levying an annual net wealth tax. Until a few years ago, such a proposal appeared difficult to both implement and control, but recent technological innovations, which could greatly facilitate the periodic valuation of wealth, combined with improvements in international tax information sharing could make a "modern wealth tax" possible. Nonetheless, a number of challenges regarding its design still need to be addressed. Taking advantage of the Spanish experience—the only EU country to levy a wealth tax—we undertake a quantitative analysis of various key legal elements of the current tax (exemptions and the common income and wealth tax ceiling) by means of a tax simulator we have developed; we also analyze its redistributive power. Our results show that the family business exemption and the common ceilings are highly regressive. We also assess the effectiveness of alternative reforms with more comprehensive tax bases (JEL codes: H24, H23, and D31).

La digitalización supone un reto para las Administraciones tributarias, que se encuentran ante una realidad más compleja, pero a su vez ante nuevas oportunidades derivadas del acceso a una cantidad ingente de información hasta hace poco impensable. En el artículo se analiza la evolución que se está produciendo en el papel de las Administraciones tributarias, se destacan algunas experiencias punteras y se subraya la importancia de la cooperación internacional.

SummaryDecentralization is believed to constitute the optimal institutional arrangement for the provision of public expenditure. In contrast to centralization, it is thought to offer a better match between the provision of public services and individual preferences. We test this fundamental hypothesis propounded by the fiscal federalism literature by analyzing the process of decentralization undergone by Spain since the beginning of the 1980s. We exploit survey data in which respondents (coded according to their region of residence) are asked about their level of satisfaction with the provision of public goods. A higher degree of satisfaction is expressed when responsibility for education and health expenditure is assigned to the intermediate tier of government rather than to central government. This level of satisfaction, however, is not recorded in the case of Spain's largest regions. Likewise, the simultaneous presence of tax revenue decentralization does not guarantee further welfare gains. In the case of the administration of justice—where the nature of the responsibility assigned to some regional governments is of a merely administrative nature—decentralization does not appear to have any impact on the level of satisfaction expressed.