Research note: Illustrating the distributional implications of measures from the 2016 budget for Malta

This paper examines the main measures as announced in the 2016 Budget for Malta and their redistributive impact. The measures considered include the minimum pension measure, the in-work benefit and the income tax measure. EUROMOD, a tax-benefit micro-simulation model was used to simulate these measures and arrive at the results by looking at deciles of equivalised household disposable incomes. The overall result shows that the combined effect of these measures, redistribute income from higher to lower and middle income groups whilst lowering the at-risk-of-poverty rate. Whilst the retirement pension benefitted the bottom three decile groups, the income tax reform benefitted mostly the fourth, fifth and sixth decile groups. The in-work benefit, which was an extension of an existing benefit, mostly affected the lower income groups.