Effects of flat tax reforms in Western Europe on equity and efficiency

The flat income tax has become increasingly popular recently, yet its implementation is limited to Eastern Europe. We analyse the distributional and e? ciency effects of flat tax scenarios for Western European countries. Our simulations show that flat tax rates required to attain revenue neutrality with existing basic allowances improve labour supply incentives. However, they result in higher inequality and polarisation. Flat rates necessary to keep the inequality levels unchanged allow for some scope for flat taxes to increase both equity and e? ciency. Our analysis suggests that Mediterranean countries are more likely to benefit from flat taxes. --Flat tax reform,income distribution,work incentives,microsimulation

Effects of Flat Tax Reforms in Western Europe on Income Distribution and Work Incentives

The flat income tax has become increasingly popular recently, yet its implementation is limited to Eastern Europe. We analyse the distributional and efficiency effects of flat tax scenarios for Western European countries. Our simulations show that flat tax rates required to attain revenue neutrality with existing basic allowances improve labour supply incentives. However, they result in higher inequality and polarisation. Flat rates necessary to keep the inequality levels unchanged allow for some scope for flat taxes to increase both equity and efficiency. Our analysis suggests that Mediterranean countries are more likely to benefit from flat taxes.flat tax reform, income distribution, work incentives, microsimulation

The Distributional Impact of In Kind Public Benefits in European Countries

International comparisons of inequality based on measures of disposable income may not be valid if the size and incidence of publicly-provided in kind benefits differ across the countries considered. The benefits that are financed by taxation in one country may need to be purchased out of disposable income in another. We estimate the size and incidence of in kind or "non cash" benefits from public housing subsidies, education and health care for five European countries using comparable methods and data. Inequality in the augmented income measure is dramatically lower than in disposable income, with the effects of the three components varying in importance across countries. Adapting equivalence scales to take proper account of differences in needs for health care and education across population members reduces the scale of the effect, but does not eliminate it.inequality, in kind transfers, cross-national comparisons

Income underreporting based on income expenditure gaps: Survey vs tax records

We estimate the extent of income underreporting among working households, using data from an income survey linked with individual tax records for Estonia. Income underreporting is inferred from consumption propensities, following and extending the method by Pissarides andWeber (1989). Our dataset allows us to assess the validity of the key assumption in related studies that survey income corresponds to income reported to the tax authority. Our results show large underreporting of earnings by the self-employed and also substantial underreporting of earnings by private sector employees on the basis of register income, while a much smaller scale of non-compliance is detected for self-employed and no underreporting for private employees using survey incomes. This suggests that previous studies applying this methodology to survey data have underestimated the extent of non-compliance

Classifying the Ice Seasons 1982-2016 Using the Weighted Ice Days Number as a New Winter Severity Characteristic

Sea ice is a key climate factor and it restricts considerably the winter navigation in severe seasons on the Baltic Sea. So determining ice conditions severity and describing ice cover behavior at severe seasons are necessary. The ice seasons severity degree is studied at the years 1982 to 2016. A new integrative characteristic named the weighted ice days number of the season is introduced to determine the ice season severity. The ice concentration data on the Baltic Sea published in the European Copernicus Programme are used to calculate the maximal ice extent and the weighted ice days number of the seasons. Both the ice season severity characteristics are used to classify the winters with respect of severity. The ice seasons 1981/82, 1984/85, 1985/86, 1986/87, 1995/96 and 2002/03 are classified as severe by the weighted ice days number. Only three seasons of this list are severe by both the criteria. We interpret this coincidence as the evidence of enough-during extensive ice cover in these three seasons. In the winter 2010/11 ice cover extended widely for some time, but did not last longer. At 2002/03 and a few other ice seasons the Baltic Sea was ice-covered in moderate extent, but the ice cover stayed long time. For 11 winters (32 % of the period) the relational weighted ice days number differs considerably (> 10 %) from the relational maximal ice extent. These winters yield one third of the studied ice seasons. Statistically every 6th winter is severe by the weighted ice days number whereas only statistically every 8th winter is severe by the maximal ice extent on the Baltic. Hence there are more intrinsically severe seasons than the maximal ice extent gives. The maximal ice extent fails to account with the ice cover durability. The weighted ice days number enables to describe the ice cover behavior more representatively. Using the weighted ice days number adds the temporal dimension to the ice season severity study

The Maritime Industry of Nigeria. Challenges and Sustainable Prospects

In this paper, we have analysed the history of the Nigerian Shipping Industry in mid-1950s,Nigeria’s first indigenous shipping line the “Nigerian Line” was established by Mr. Patrick Osoba as ajoint venture with the Finnish firm, Nordstrom and Company. Furthermore, the evolution of theNigerian fleet will be shown in statistics from 1980 to 2017 and what happened between these years.There are many challenges that affects the Maritime Transportation Industry in Nigeria and these haveto be solved and taken into consideration because this Industry plays a vital role in the Economy andgrowth of the Nation. These challenges are funding, manpower, legislation, pollution, safety etc. thesewould be expatiated further into this paper, and we have tried to analyze these challenges, giving aproposal on how to boost the Nigerian Maritime Industry

The distributional effects of taxes and transfers under alternative income concepts: The importance of three 'I's

This paper investigates how the distribution of income changes when the standard definition of disposable income is replaced by an extended income concept which takes into account the three 'I's: indirect taxes, imputed rent, and in-kind benefits. Second, it assesses how sensitive the distributional effects of each tax-benefit instrument are to the choice of income concept. The analysis covers three European countries (Belgium, Greece and the UK) characterised by substantially different tax-benefit systems, giving a stronger base for generalising the results. The main findings are that the overall redistributive effect of the tax-benefit systems depends heavily on the income concept considered and the differences across countries are smaller when considering the extended income distribution. Moreover, the common use of a narrower income concept, such as the disposable income, can lead to the overestimation of the redistributive effect of the cash tax-benefit instruments (in relative terms), the extent of this varying across countries, due to the size and distribution of three 'I's and the adoption of the needs-adjusted equivalence scale

Effects of flat tax reforms in Western Europe on income distribution and work incentives

The flat income tax has become increasingly popular recently, yet its implementation is limited to Eastern Europe. We analyse the distributional and efficiency effects of flat tax scenarios for Western European countries. Our simulations show that flat tax rates required to attain revenue neutrality with existing basic allowances improve labour supply incentives. However, they result in higher inequality and polarisation. Flat rates necessary to keep the inequality levels unchanged allow for some scope for flat taxes to increase both equity and efficiency. Our analysis suggests that Mediterranean countries are more likely to benefit from flat taxes