This paper documents methodology underlying the construction of the integrated data base for our study on "Wer trägt die Steuerlast in Deutschland? - Verteilungswirkungen des deutschen Steuer- und Transfersystems" (Who bears the tax burden in Germany? - Distributional Analyses of the German tax...

The paper investigates the impacts of demographic change on the financial sustainability of a pay-as-you-go social security system in an economy with unemployment caused by trade unions. Using a simple two-period overlapping generations approach, it can be shown that the trade union behavior...

Die Studie untersucht vier Reformoptionen, die zu einer Entlastung geringer und mittlerer Einkommen bei gleichzeitig moderater Belastung höherer Einkommen führen. Der Solidaritätszuschlag wird abgeschafft. Der Grundfreibetrag und der Eingangssteuersatz bleiben in allen Varianten unverändert....

Der Ausbau der Erneuerbaren Energien zur Stromerzeugung wird in Deutschland durch die EEG-Umlage gefördert. Die Umlage belastet alle Stromverbraucher, unab-hängig davon, ob sie erneuerbar oder fossil erzeugten Strom nutzen. Auch die zu-nehmenden Netzausbaukosten werden auf die Stromverbraucher...

Completely eliminating the sharp rise in the tax rate for middle income households in Germany by changing personal income tax rates would mean estimated annual losses in tax revenue of 35 billion euros, or 1.1 percent of GDP. Taxpayers with high incomes would also benefit from this type of...

Der Staat beansprucht einen stetig wachsenden Anteil der Wirtschaftskraft für sich. Während der Anteil der Steuereinnahmen am Bruttoinlandsprodukt nach der Kassenstatistik im Jahr 2016 bei 22,5 Prozent lag, waren es 2004 noch 3 Prozentpunkte weniger. Dabei steigt vor allem die Steuerquote der...

Mit jedem Jahreswechsel ändern sich die Eckwerte zur Berechnung der Steuer- und Abgabenlast: In diesem Jahr werden zum Ausgleich der kalten Progression der Steuertarif leicht abgeflacht und die Freibeträge erhöht. Allerdings steigt der Beitragssatz zur Pflegeversicherung. Zudem erhöhen sich...

Using the MIMIC method, this paper is a first attempt to estimate the size of the shadow economy of 158 countries over the period 1991 up to 2015. In addition to performing a variety of robustness tests, this paper explicitly addresses endogeneity concerns to the use of GDP as cause and...

If the desire is to provide tax relief to households with lower and middle incomes in Germany, it is necessary to target the valueadded tax rather than the personal income tax. Lowering the standard value-added tax rate by one percentage point (from 19 to 18 percent) would mean relief worth 11...

This paper is a first attempt to estimate the size and development of the shadow economy of 158 countries over the period 1991 up to 2015. Using the Multiple Indicators, Multiple Causes (MIMIC) method we apply for the first time (i) the light intensity approach instead of GDP avoiding the...

As long as it is employed cautiously enough, the model approach is a useful tool to estimate simultaneously the size and the development of the shadow economy in several countries. However, a second method is necessary to calibrate the model. The currency demand approach can lead to highly...

We examine the effects of globalization on the size and composition of tax revenues, worker-specific tax burdens, and effective average labor income tax rates using a unique international database on income tax calculators. We find that due to increasing mobility of firms and high-income...

We assess the concentration and duration of zero tax liabilities and of transfer receipts, using data for households with ten to forty years of observations from the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics. We find that neither is strongly concentrated. Nearly 68% owe no federal tax in at least one...

Die Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (INSM) hat das ifo Institut mit der Erstellung einer Studie zum sogenannten Mittelstandsbauch im deutschen Einkommensteuertarif beauftragt. Der Mittelstandsbauch führt bei geringen und mittleren Einkommen zu einem schnell steigenden Grenzsteuersatz,...

The study aims to assess the distributional effects of taxing financial transactions including a focus on gender. It specifically investigates the impact of the low interest rate environment on tax revenues and distribution. The first part of the study is explorative, aiming to develop a concept...

Die Einigung der Koalition auf eine Änderung des Erbschaft- und Schenkungssteuergesetzes hat lange auf sich warten lassen. Die vom Bundesverfassungsgericht gesetzte Frist wird damit um einige Tage verpasst werden – sofern das Gesetz nach dem Bundestag auch den Bundesrat am 8. Juli passiert....

Contrary to frequent recommendations of the public finance literature and international institutions, a persistently high tax wedge on labor is observed in Europe. At the same time, the scope for shifting taxes from labor to more growth-friendly revenue sources appears underused in many European...

Die Kalte Progression schwächt die Verteilungswirkungen des Steuersystems und führt zu einer Ausweitung der Steuerquote, die sich der demokratischen Kontrolle entzieht. Die Beseitigung der Kalten Progression ist somit angezeigt. • In der öffentlichen Debatte wird zumeist auf die Kalte...

Von 2010 bis einschließlich 2015 hat sich die gesamte, nicht mittels Tarifanpassungen ausgeglichene Zusatzbelastung der Steuerzahler durch die kalte Progression auf 36,5 Milliarden Euro summiert. Diese versteckten impliziten Steuererhöhungen durch die kalte Progression sind nicht durch die...

This study aims at contributing to the ongoing debates on the bracket creep, whether Germany needs an integration of inflation indexation into its personal income tax system in order to re-duce distortions of tax liabilities and additional tax burdens. On the other hand, Germany has continuously...

The paper motivates and describes the tax treatment of German retirement benefits and pensions after the 2005 reform initiated by the German Federal Constitutional Court. The main question is whether this reform has produced a "level playing field" among the many instruments generating...

This paper designs and tests a comprehensive model, solved by statistical simulation, which describes and quantifies the effect of the tax system and lifelong income characteristics on the effective tax burden of a population or its segment. In the present application the model is structured and...

This paper investigates the taxation of investments in the Asia-Pacific region. Our analysis is based on the methodology of Devereux and Griffith (1999, 2003) for determining effective average tax rates. This approach allows us to account for important national and international tax regulations....

The paper shows the effect of demographic change on per capita burden of financing a PAYG social security system in the standard OLG model with frictional labor markets. Rising longevity and decreasing fertility both induce a rise in the employment level via increased capital accumulation and...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the relationship between fiscal illusion and the shadow economy for 104 countries over the period 1989-2009. We argue that both unobservable phenomena are closely linked to each other, as the creation of a fiscal illusion may be helpful if governments...

Nach der Einführung der Zinsschrankenregelung in 2008 ist ein EBITDA-Vortrag eingeführt worden, durch den das nicht genutzte Zinsabzugsvolumen in die folgenden fünf Wirtschaftsjahre vorgetragen wird. Durch diesen Vortrag soll die Wirkung der Zinsschranke gemildert oder vollständig vermieden...

This paper examines whether elections, which are generally held on fixed dates, and banking crises explain the timing of tax reforms and the allocation of the additional tax burden. Using an original fine-grained dataset of tax reforms, the paper finds support for the role of these two sources...

The seminal cobweb model by Brock and Hommes reveals that fixed-point dynamics may turn into increasingly complex dynamics as firms switch more quickly between competing expectation rules. While policy-makers may be able to manage such rational routes to randomness by imposing a proportional...