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The 2001 Russian tax reform reduced average tax rates for the personal income tax and the payroll or social tax. It also made the tax structure more regressive. Because individuals in the lower income bracket were for the most part not affected, it is possible to estimate the effects of the reform using a differences-in-differences approach. I study the effect of the reform on informal employment. Informality is defined using information on employment registration and self-employment. Applying parametric and semi-parametric techniques, I find evidence that the tax reform led to a significant reduction in the fraction of informal employees. Among the different forms of informality I study, the reform seems to have had the strongest effect on the prevalence of informal irregular activities. I also document stronger effects on individuals who benefited from the largest reductions in tax rates. The strong response to the tax reform is consistent with the emerging consensus in the literature on taxation that changes to the tax system lead to significant behavioral responses, although not necessarily in the form of a reduced labor supply.

Nobody has ever liked paying taxes, but individual grumbling is growing to a loud chorus of complaints. The system of federal income taxes has become so complex that few individuals can compute for themselves what they owe and both personal and corporate financial decisions are often based more on their tax consequences than on their soundness from either a production or consumption point of view. All this leads to a perceived unfairness, with some better able than others to take advantage of preferences and loopholes in the system.

We study the impact of tax and minimum wage reforms on the incidence of informality. To gauge the incidence of informality, we use measures of the extent of tax evasion, the extent of minimum wage noncompliance, and the size of the informal workforce. Our approach allows us to examine (i) the distinction between determinants of firm-level reported wage distribution and actual wage distribution, (ii) the complementarity of tax and minimum wage enforcement, (iii) the impact that a minimum wage reform has on tax and minimum wage compliance, and (iv) the impact that a tax policy reform has on tax and minimum wage compliance. We conclude with the design of optimal minimum wage and tax policies (even in the complete absence of minimum wage enforcement). We do so based on two objectives derived from popular concerns associated with an unchecked expansion of informality: tax revenue maximization, and poverty alleviation among workers.

This study is the first attempt to analyze the effectiveness of recent two major tax policies, the reductions in personal and corporate income taxes and a rise in indirect tax and their combine, under both balanced and unbalanced budget conditions, on the economy and social aspects of Malaysia.

This study uses a computable general equilibrium model to investigate the impacts of all simulation scenarios on the key macro and micro indicators. Further, based on the 2012 Malaysia Household Income and Expenditure Survey, it uses a micro-data with a significant number of households (over 56,000 individuals) to analyze the impacts of tax policies on poverty and income inequality of Malaysian.

Simulation results show that, under the balanced budget condition, personal and corporate income tax reductions increase economic growth, household consumption, and investment, while the rise in indirect tax has adverse impacts on these variables. However, in the unbalanced budget condition, all tax policies, except indirect tax policy, reduce real GDP and investment in the economy and the indirect tax policy has insignificant impacts on all indicators. All policy reforms reallocate resources, especially labor, in the economy. In both budget conditions, the reductions in corporate and personal income taxes, particularly the corporate income tax, decrease poverty level of Malaysian households. Results also indicate that both tax policies are unable to influence income inequality in Malaysia.

This study recommends that the government can increase its revenue by increasing indirect taxes as it does not have any impact on household welfare. In order to increase government revenues, initial increases in personal and corporate income taxes are suggested as they may have small negative impacts on the economy and welfare of households.

One of the significant features of this paper is that it examines both expansionary and contractionary fiscal policies in a country that government budget depends on oil exports. Since the literature on this subject is limited, particularly in the Malaysian context, the authors used Malaysia as a case to show how tax reform policies affect the economy and poverty level of such countries. Distinguishing the Malaysian households into 10 deciles and analyzing the distributional impacts of tax policies on these categories are the most significant contributions of this study.

The authors analyse how the association between parental background and adult children's earnings changes when net rather than gross children's earnings are considered and disentangle what such changes depend on: differences between pre and after taxes earnings inequality or reranking of individuals along the earnings distribution before and after taxes.

Using data from European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) 2011, the authors focus on two large European countries, Italy and Poland, with comparable levels of inequality and background-related earnings premia but very different personal income tax (PIT) design and estimate – at both the mean and the deciles of the earnings distribution – the association between parents' characteristics and children's gross and net earnings.

The authors find that in Italy the PIT reduces the magnitude of the association between parental background and adult children's earnings at the top of the distribution, while no effects emerge for Poland, and the reduction is mostly due to a decrease in earnings inequality rather than to a re-ranking of children along the distribution. The findings are confirmed when the authors simulate the introduction of a “quasi flat tax” regime in Italy.

The findings suggest that the higher the tax progressivity, the higher the background-related inequality reduction and the lower the intergenerational association, signalling that the degree of progressivity amongst children may be an effective weapon to reduce intergenerational inequality.

In the literature on intergenerational inequality, the role of taxes is usually overlooked. In this paper, the authors try to fill this gap and enquire how the PIT design affects the association between parental background and adult children's earnings.

This article aims to examine academic literature and the taxation regulatory environment in Estonia in relation to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The objective of the paper is to identify key areas of the taxation regulatory environment which affects SMEs and assess and link important academic literature in relation to those areas with the empirical research. In effect to explore that business reality including Estonia's Soviet historical background and compliance with her EU membership taxation obligations.

This exploratory paper makes use of World Bank Surveys and primary tax law sources, together with qualitative empirical research from an SME manager and a taxation law firm, both from within the country assessed.

It confirms the correlation between economic growth and taxation and identifies the “key” aspects of the taxation regulatory environment for an SME through academic literature reviewed which is linked with the empirical research. This qualitative research provides in‐depth information and fills gaps from previous quantitative research. It emphasises a very positive progression including significant electronic development and compliance with EU directives and regulations has been made by Estonia encouraging SME activity.

This research demonstrates the business reality of the Estonian taxation regulatory environment. Unofficial costs, a legacy from the Soviet period, are virtually non‐existent within the Estonian taxation system. Gaps within World Bank Surveys are filled by the interviews, which give a grass‐roots perspective on taxation regulation affecting an SME.

The research highlights the importance of the taxation regulatory environment and the reality of the regulation and compliance work for SMEs within a relatively new EU member state. Estonia is an important country within Europe's “Northern Dimension” and a former member of the Soviet Union. Consequently, any assessment of its taxation environment can be used as a guideline/model for others from similar backgrounds with similar aspirations.