Corporate Taxation and SMEs: The Italian Experience

This paper focuses on the tax impediments faced by small and medium-sized enterprises in Italy. The fact that small businesses are characterized by financing constraints and have less access to bank loans is often emphasized as an argument in favour of a special tax treatment for small enterprises. On the one hand, however, the evidence that SMEs suffer severe financing constraints is not overwhelming; on the other hand, tax relief

Trends in Top Incomes and their Tax Policy Implications

This paper uses data derived from tax returns to analyse trends in the share of pre-tax personal income going to top income recipients. These data provide a more reliable source of information on top incomes than household surveys and allow a perspective of almost a century. Since the early 1980s there has been a recovery in the share of top incomes, especially in the share of the top percentile group.

Tax Reform Trends in OECD Countries

Over the last two decades almost all OECD countries have made major structural changes to their tax systems. In the case of the personal and corporate income tax regimes reforms have generally been rate reducing and base broadening, following the lead given by the United Kingdom in 1984 and the United States in 1986. In some countries, including Australia and New Zealand, reforms have been profound and sometimes implemented over a

Making Fundamental Tax Reform Happen

This paper discusses the objectives of tax reform and explores the most important environmental factors that influence the reform process, focusing on the circumstances that explain when these objectives and environmental factors may become an obstacle to the design and implementation of tax policies. The second part of this paper discusses strategies that might help policy makers to successfully implement fundamental tax reforms.

Consumption Taxation as an Additional Burden on Labour Income

The OECD’s Taxing Wages (TW) Report1 provides details of taxes paid on wages in the 34 OECD member countries. In particular, it covers the personal income tax and social security contributions paid by employees and their employers, as well as cash benefits received by families.

Wage Income Tax Reforms and Changes in Tax Burdens: 2000-2009

The tax burden on labour and its evolution over time are issues that feature prominently in the political debate. Averaged across the OECD, personal income taxes, social security contributions and payroll taxes together account for more than 51% of total government revenues in 2008 (OECD, 2010).

Refining macroeconomic policies to sustain growth in Brazil

This paper identifies refinements to the macroeconomic framework that will help Brazil to achieve strong performance in a new environment.

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Austria: public sector inefficiencies have become less affordable

Performance of fiscal policy, while good in international comparison, is not sufficient to prepare for future ageing-related spending increases.

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Reforming Austria’s highly regarded but costly health system

The highly regarded Austrian health system delivers good quality and easily accessible services, but is costly.

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Can India achieve double-digit growth?

In recent years, India has enjoyed one of the highest growth rates worldwide, weathering the global financial crisis better than many other countries.

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