This study examines the extent of income-shifting between tax bases among the owners of privately held businesses. The dual income tax system in Finland offers noticeable incentives for income-shifting between wages and dividends for business owners. The dividend tax reform of 2005 enables us to...

The tax bias in favour of debt finance under the corporate income tax means that corporate debt ratios exceed the socially optimal level. This creates a rationale for thin-capitalization rules limiting the amount of debt that qualifies for interest deductibility. This paper sets up a model of...

When companies finance their investment via the international markets for stocks and bonds, relief from domestic personal taxes on dividends and capital gains will not reduce the cost of capital. Some authors have shown that even for small domestic companies whose shares are not traded...

A tax buyout is a contract between tax authorities and a tax payer which reduces the marginal income tax rate in exchange for a lump-sum payment. While previous contributions have focussed on labour supply, we consider the interaction with tax evasion and show that a buyout can increase expected...

In this paper we construct a Ricardian model of trade in vertically-differentiated products between a developing country and the (developed) rest of the world. Despite labour being the only factor of production in this model, tariffs (in addition to income taxes) have distributional consequences...

This paper analyses the optimal tax policy and public provision of private goods when individuals differ in two respects: income-earning ability and rationality. Publicly provided goods should be overprovided or subsidised, relative to the decentralised optimum, if society’s marginal valuation...

Presumptive taxation, in which an income proxy is used as tax base, has been and is still used today in countries with very diverse situations - developing, transition and developed countries. Usually, this form of taxation is thought of as a revenue-raising device in presence of widespread...

The German Income Tax Reform 2000, which announced a reduction in income tax rates to be implemented in a series of three stages, was welcomed by the public as a step towards unleashing lurking growth potentials. Nonetheless, in the course of the year 2001 a dispute arose, centering around the...

This study investigates spatial segregation of the population in fiscally decentralized urban areas. The theoretical part proposes the progressivity of local income taxes as a new explanation for income segregation. The empirical part studies how income tax differentials across municipalities in...

Beyond the traditional debates over information exchange vs flat taxation at source, legislative advances have produced interesting innovations and suggestions concerning how to tax international savings. We examine some of these advances, which we then use to set forth and investigate a...