Topic Taxes

Ecological Tax Revenue Still Yields Lower Pension Contributions and Higher Pensions Today

The ecological tax reform that Germany implemented between 1999 and 2003 increased energy tax rates—especially on gasoline and diesel. Today, the ecological tax hikes yield an annual revenue of around 20 billion euros or 0.6 percent of GDP. The money is used to finance a higher federal grant to the public pension scheme. Calculations based on a pension simulation model show that the contribution rate ...

The new grand coalition’s work program: DIW Berlin says there is still much to improve

In important areas such as tax policy, education, and energy, the future grand coalition must be considerably more ambitious – The need for reform in Germany is not being addressed sufficiently Germany’s next government will most likely once again be a grand coalition. However, the results of the preliminary coalition talks between the Union parties and the SPD, which serve as a basis ...

Effectiveness of Early Retirement Disincentives: Individual Welfare, Distributional and Fiscal Implications

In aging societies, information on how to reform pension systems is essential to policy makers. This study scrutinizes effects of early retirement disincentives on retirement behavior, individual welfare, pensions and public budget. We employ administrative pension data and a detailed model of the German tax and social security system to estimate a structural dynamic retirement model. We find that ...

Video Recordings in Experiments – Are There Effects on Self-Selection or the Outcome of the Experiment?

The use of video recordings in experimental economics has become increasingly popular. However, little attention is paid to how this might affect the composition of the participating subjects and the intended treatment effect. We make a first attempt to shed light on these issues and address them in an incentivized face-to-face tax compliance experiment. The experiment contains two dimensions; i) the ...

100 Jahre deutsches Steuersystem: Revolution und Evolution

Die „Erzbergerschen Steuer- und Finanzreformen“ 1919/20 haben das deutsche Steuer- und Finanzsystem nahezu vollständig umgestaltet, modernisiert und stark ausgebaut. Wesentliche Elemente dieser Reformen haben bis heute Bestand– die Grundstrukturen des Steuersystems und der Steuerrechtsordnung sowie der zentralistische kooperative Finanzföderalismus. Das NS-Regime konsolidierte die Reformen und erhöhte ...

How do Fuel Taxes Impact New Car Purchases? An Evaluation Using French Consumer-level Data

Abolishing the final withholding tax leads to tax revenue losses and barely burdens high-income groups

Small revenue and distribution effects – Overall, slight tax revenue losses due to a period of low interest rates – Raising the final withholding tax rate to over 25 percent would result in moderate additional revenue Abolishing the final flat-rate 25 percent withholding tax on unearned income makes sense neither from a fiscal nor a distribution point of view as long as interest rates ...

"Relief for the middle class through value-added tax cuts": Six questions for Stefan Bach

Mr. Bach, to what extent could cutting the value-added tax rate relieve low- and middle-income earners? If you want to provide significant fiscal relief to lower and middle income groups, you should focus more on the valueadded tax and less on the income tax. The value-added tax puts the burden on consumption, and consumer spending accounts for a much higher proportion of lower incomes than higher ...

Income tax reform to relieve middle income households

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 relief. The ten percent of the population with the highest income would have a relief of around 10.4 billion euros—over ...

"Little room for maneuver with tax relief in the medium term": five questions for Stefan Bach

Mr. Bach, there is growing criticism that the middle income segments are suffering from a tax and social contribution burden that is too heavy. Does the middle class pay a disproportionately high amount of income tax? Actually, the middle class has a relatively low income tax burden. This is because we use the basic personal exemption to shield the subsistence level from taxation, and a range of deductions ...