The Political Economy Of Tax Reform

The rapid emergence of East Asia as an important geopolitical-economic entity has been one of the most visible and striking changes in the international economy in recent years. With that emergence has come an increased need for understanding the problems of interdependence. As a step toward meeting this need, the National Bureau of Economic Research joined with the Korea Development Institute to sponsor this volume, which focuses on the complexities of tax reform in a global economy. Experts from Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, Japan, and Thailand, as well as the United States, Canada, and Israel examine the major tax programs of the 1980s and their domestic and international economic effects. The analyses reveal similarities between the United States and countries in East Asia in political constraints on policy making, and taken together they show how growing interdependence interacts with domestic economic and political concerns to affect issues as politically vital as tax reform. Economists, policymakers, and members of the business community will benefit from these studies.

This book provides a historical understanding of current debates over tax reform and offers a comparative framework for discussing the relationship between fiscal policy and the distribution of income and wealth. Topics covered include the evolution of income taxation since World War II; the turn toward value added taxation; the relationship between tax reform and the construction of welfare states; the impact of globalization on tax and fiscal policy; the social forces shaping tax consent; and the political economy of tax and fiscal reform. These topics are covered in case studies that focus on significant episodes in the fiscal history of Denmark, Sweden, France, Greece, the United Kingdom, Spain, Switzerland, the United States, and Japan.

'Taxing Reforms is a good short book about the comparative policies of Value Added Taxation (VAT) in Australia, Canada, Japan and the United States. . . Taxing Reforms is a fine book, well worth reading, especially for specialists in the comparative political economy of taxation. . . its richly detailed case studies will make it a fruitful source of comparative hypotheses.' - Isaac W. Martin, Journal of Economic Literature

Offers a comprehensive, region-wide analysis of the politics of taxation in Latin America to make reforms politically palatable and sustainable.

What determines tax policy? What motivations do governments follow in tax reforms? Do voters react to tax reductions and tax increases? Based on a new data-set of the fiscal effects of tax reforms in Germany from 1964 to 2004, this dissertation offers new insights on the pattern of tax reforms and tests economic hypotheses of tax policy. It shows that normative approaches are largely unable to contribute to the explanation of tax reforms in Germany. With respect to polity-economic theories, author Gerrit B. Koester finds that divided government matters, but in the opposite direction of the "gridlock-hypothesis" - tax reforms are larger and more frequent in times of divided government. He does not find evidence for partisan politics, but for opportunistic behavior of governments. However, the governments' attempts to manipulate re-election probabilities by tax reductions before elections largely fail. His analyses show that voters react strongly to tax burden changes, but take the direction of tax reforms within the whole legislative period - and not just in election years - into account. Dissertation.

This volume of essays explores the history of the US tax mission to Japan during the occupation following World War II. Under General MacArthur, economist Carl S. Shoup led the mission with the charge of framing a tax system for Japan designed to strengthen democracy and accelerate economic recovery. The volume examines the sources, conduct and effects of the mission and situates the mission within the history of international financial and fiscal reform. The book begins by establishing the context of progressive social investigations of taxation, including Shoup's earlier tax missions to France and Cuba. It then goes on to explore the Japanese background to the Shoup mission and the process by which American and Japanese tax experts shaped their recommendations. The book then assesses and explains the mission's accomplishments in the context of the political economies of the United States and Japan. It concludes by analyzing the global implications of the mission, which became iconic among international tax reformers.

Analysis and comparison of taxation in different countries, looking at what tax systems have in common, how they differ and trying to explain both the similarities and the diffences. The first part concerns tax structures. The second part looks at individual taxes or related groups of taxes. The third section deals with some aspects of policy-making and tax administation.