The Business tax in Germany (German: Gewerbesteuer) has remained a continuous problem in spite of the recent economic boom. There has been a dramatic resurgence of populist voices calling for the abolition of the German Business tax. Regardless of these debates, the structural deficits of the...

The 2007-2010 recession has imposed significant fiscal hardships on state and local governments. The result has been state deficits and the need to increase state taxes, cut spending, and withdraw funds from state rainy day accounts. The primary cause of state budget "gaps" has been the rise in...

The present paper introduces a simple alternative two-stage Premium Model to eliminate the distortionary and non-transparent deficits of the recent Premium Model in the federal financial equalization system in Germany. The premium amounts of the recent Premium Model directly influence the...

Bereits seit langer Zeit wird über ein Zuschlagsmodell auf die Einkommen- und Körperschaftsteuer diskutiert, um die Steuerautonomie der Bundesländer zu erhöhen. Die dazu erforderliche Senkung der bundeseinheitlichen Steuersätze führt bei aufkommensneutralen Zuschlagssätzen im...

Sub-central tax competition is the strategic interaction of tax policy between jurisdictions with the objective to attract and retain mobile tax bases. The views on tax competition differ widely: while some consider that tax competition brings sub-central fiscal policy closer to citizen?s...

Theoretical developments in political economy analyses of intergovernmental transfers identify several factors previously ignored in the empirical literature and emphasize the importance of institutional details. Combined, these two developments create a degrees of freedom problem and make cross...

The debate around green fiscal reform has been going on for more than 20 years in Europe. However, to this day the focus has been mainly (or almost completely) concentrated on national fiscal systems, while the local dimension has been largely ignored. Environmental taxes, or at least some of...

The relation between per capita public expenditures und population density is implemented in specific population weights, which are used in the German financial equalization schemes. The population weights simulate above-average financial requirements of regions leading to higher transfers. The...

This paper studies comprehensive national panel data of local option sales taxes at the monthly frequency. I calculate state-by-month population weighted averages and standard deviations of local sales tax rates. I document ten stylized facts concerning the time series patterns and spatial...

The extent of political and fiscal centralization in Russia has experienced dramatic changes since the end of the Soviet era. The heavily centralized, both politically and economically, federal structures became dysfunctional and unstable until the introduction of the Budget and Tax Codes over...