This paper provides evidence over a long time period on the question of who bears the burden of social security contributions (SSC) in Germany. Following Alvaredo et al. (2016) we exploit kinks in the budget set generated by a drop in the marginal SSC rate at earnings caps. Based on cross-sectional earnings distributions the framework does not rely on policy reforms. Applying the approach to administrative ...
We estimate economic incidence of social security contributions (SSC) on the basis of cross-sectional earnings distributions. The approach exploits discontinuities in earnings distributions at kinks in the budget set which are informative about tax incidence. Contrary to most research on SSC incidence, it does not rely on policy reforms, panel data, or hours information. When the location of kinks ...
In 2013, around 121 billion US-Dollar were spend worldwide to promote the investment into renewable energy sources. The most prominent support scheme employed is a feed-in tariff, which guarantees a fixed price for electricity produced by renewable energies sources, usually for around 15 years after the installation of the plant. We study the incidence of wind turbine subsidies, due to a feed-in tariff ...
Tax competition for capital has led to a trend where many countries levy lower taxes on interest income, often introducing differential taxation between interest and business income. This study analyzes the effect on firm debt usage. We exploit Germany’s 2009 tax reform, which introduced a final withholding tax on interest income with a flat rate 18 percentage points below the unchanged tax rate on ...
Compared to the rest of Europe, Germany exhibits an especially high concentration of wealth. According to estimates based on a microsimulation model, a German wealth tax could generate an estimated ten to 20 billion euros per year in revenue—even with high tax allowances—and slightly reduce the inequality of income distribution, as well. Collection costs would range from four to eight percent in relation ...