Journal of Public Economics · 2023 · Johannes Becker、John D. Wilson
中文摘要
我们考察这样一个世界：各国对流动资本和储蓄实行最优征税（如 Bucovetsky 和 Wilson，1991）。企业和储蓄者可能少报收入，以避税或逃税。我们表明，即使存在少报行为，税收竞争下的均衡仍可能是约束有效的（即不存在通过税收协调增进福利的空间）。当少报储蓄收入和投资收入的边际社会成本相等时，便会出现这种情况。该模型表明，如果对资本征收的来源地税如通常所假定的那样低效地偏低，那么对储蓄征收的税必然低效地偏高。约束有效的税收政策会使少报行为的社会成本最小化。如果利润收入或劳动收入也可被少报，那么在引入对这些类型收入的征税后，上述结果依然稳健。我们的结论是，关于税收竞争下协调必要性的常见假设，需要加以修正或限定。
Abstract
We consider a world in which countries apply optimal taxes on mobile capital and savings (like in Bucovetsky and Wilson, 1991). Firms and savers may underreport income to avoid or evade taxation. We show that, even in the presence of underreporting, the equilibrium under tax competition may still be constrained-efficient (in the sense that there is no scope for welfare-enhancing tax coordination). This is the case if the marginal social costs of underreporting savings and investment income are equal. The model demonstrates that, if source-based taxes on capital are inefficiently low, as is often assumed, taxes on savings must be inefficiently high. Constrained-efficient tax policy minimizes the social cost of underreporting. The results are robust to introducing taxes on profit or labor income, if these types of income can be underreported as well. We conclude that commonly held assumptions on the need for coordination under tax competition need to be revised or qualified.