The Russian Flat Tax Reform

Russia dramatically reduced its higher rates of personal income tax (PIT) in 2001 establishing a single marginal rate at the low level of 13 percent. In the following year, real revenue from the PIT actually increased by about 26 percent. This 'flat tax' experience has attracted much attention (and emulation) among policymakers, making it perhaps the most important tax reform of recent years. But it has been little studied. This paper asks whether the strong revenue performance of the PIT was itself a consequence of this reform, using both macro evidence and, in particular, micro-level data on the experiences of individuals and households affected by the reform to varying degrees. It concludes that there is no evidence of a strong supply side effect of the reform. Compliance, however, did improve quite substantially-by about one third according to our estimates-though it remains unclear whether this was due to the parametric reforms or to accompanying changes in enforcement.
Publication date: January 2005
ISBN: 9781451860351
$15.00
Add to Cart by clicking price of the language and format you'd like to purchase
Available Languages and Formats
English
Prices in red indicate formats that are not yet available but are forthcoming.
Topics covered in this book

This title contains information about the following subjects. Click on a subject if you would like to see other titles with the same subjects.

Economics- Macroeconomics , Economics- Macroeconomics , Taxation - General , Taxation - General , Tax reform , flat tax , tax payments , tax rates , social taxes , Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents: Household

Summary