Getting tax and transfer systems to efficiently deliver sufficient revenues to achieve macroeconomic targets, address goals in re-distribution and social welfare, encourage employment, accommodate business-competitiveness concerns and incorporate environmental issues is difficult. In Australia,...

Indonesia has come a long way in improving its tax system over the last decade, both in terms of revenues raised and administrative efficiency. Nonetheless, the tax take is still low, given the need for more spending on infrastructure and social protection. With the exception of the natural...

The main features of China’s current sub-national finance arrangements date back to the 1994 tax reform. China has a multi-level government structure that shares national tax revenues through a system of tax sharing and transfers, and divides spending assignments and responsibilities. Local...

Reforms over the past two decades have produced a well-balanced, modern tax system. However, considerable revenues will be needed in the years ahead to expand social spending and infrastructure in order to raise growth and well-being. The challenge is to generate these revenues without...

Can reforms that shift the balance among different taxes in the revenue mix lastingly influence the overall prosperity of an economy and the distribution of income across households? The present study takes this question to the data, using the experience of 34 OECD countries over 1980-2014 to...

This paper examines the redistributive impact of fiscal policy for Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru and South Africa using comparable fiscal incidence analysis with data from around 2010. The largest redistributive effect is in South Africa and the smallest in Indonesia. Success...

Estimating the impact of the crisis on income distribution requires up-to-date information. Due to the complexity of income surveys such as EU-SILC, income data usually become available with considerable delay. In this context, micro-simulation models are an appropriate and widely used...

Recent debates of basic income (BI) proposals shine a useful spotlight on the challenges that traditional forms of income support are increasingly facing, and highlight gaps in social provisions that largely depend on income or employment status. A universal “no questions asked” public...

This paper assesses Italy’s 2019 tax and benefit reforms, analyses hypothetical reforms and proposes a reform package that balances goals of reducing poverty, encouraging employment and fiscal sustainability. Using the OECD’s Tax-Benefit and the EUROMOD microsimulation models, it shows that...

Housing conditions in Belgium are among the best in OECD countries according to the Better Life Index, as dwellings are of high quality and large, and housing costs are average. However, the steep increase in house prices since 2003 has put market access for first-time buyers under pressure....