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This chapter evaluates the effectiveness of states' research and development (R&D, used to represent creditable research expenses) tax credits. Prior studies report mixed results on the effect of state R&D tax credit incentives. Generally, such studies consider the influence of state R&D tax credits by applying the statutory income tax and R&D credit tax rates. We reexamine the effect of a state's entire tax burden instead of the statutory tax rates in moderating the effectiveness of a state's R&D tax credit incentives. After controlling for several nontax factors, such as the workplace environment, political environment, and workforce education levels in a regression analysis during the 2010–2013 period in 50 states, we find that statewide private-sector R&D spending is a positive function of the R&D tax credit and this effect increases with the overall level of the state tax burden. We attribute this finding to the fact that high tax burdens increase the present value of the R&D tax credits.

This study aims to explore the influence of corporate taxation on the performance of innovative companies under various research and development (R&D) tax incentive programs.

The empirical model is based on the data of 520 companies for period 2007-2016. This model includes return on assets as the main proxy for performance and effective tax rate as a main explanatory variable. Controlling for other known determinants, the authors divide the sample into the subsamples to control for the various R&D tax incentive programs. The fact that the model includes the lagged explanatory variable of performance the Blundell –Bond model was applied.

The authors found evidence that corporate taxation has a significant impact on performance, but the direction could be ambiguous. Impact of the corporate tax rate on performance in general sample is significantly negative, which is consistent with results obtained by authors for the non-innovative companies. However, for further examination, the authors use subsamples of companies with different R&D tax incentive programs. The effect of corporate tax becomes positive under the patent box program only. Moreover, under various R&D tax incentive program, the impact of main control variables has changed. Therefore, the authors conclude that not only corporate taxation but also R&D tax incentive programs significantly influence the performance of innovative companies.

The data are limited due to fragmented information disclosure about the R&D tax incentive program used. Thus, a different data set might reveal new information and correlation between variable on the same topic. Moreover, the authors do not cover all R&D tax incentive programs, which are specified for companies and countries. However, the study fills the gap between corporate taxation, performance and innovative companies. As the significant result was found the further research is important. The study contributes not only in the field of research but also a practical one. The choice of R&D tax incentive program influences main indicators of companies’ performance so it may change the behavior of the investors and decision-making managers of the companies.

Given the increasing interest in the topic of innovative companies, this study fills the gap between corporate taxation in innovative companies and performance. In addition, the importance of R&D tax incentive programs as a feature of innovative companies was found.

This paper analyzes the impact of economic downturns on the revenue and expense sides of city financing for the period 2003 to 2009 using a convenience sample of the audited end of year financial reports for thirty midsized US cities. The analysis focuses on whether and how quickly and how extensively revenue and spending directions from past years are altered by recessions. A seven year series of Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) data serves to explore whether citiesʼ revenues and spending, especially the traditional property tax and core functions such as public safety and infrastructure withstood the brief 2001 and the persistent 2007 recessions? The findings point to consumption (spending) over stability (revenue minus expense) for the recession of 2007, particularly in 2008 and 2009.

The extent to which means-tested transfers, social insurance, and tax credits fill the gap between a family's private resources and the poverty threshold is a periodic barometer of the social safety net. Using data on families from the Current Population Survey I examine how the level and composition of before- and after-tax and after-transfer poverty gaps changed in response to changes in the policy and economic landscapes over the past two decades. The estimates presented here indicate not only dramatic changes in the level and sources of income maintenance programs filling the poverty gap, but also dramatic changes in which demographic groups successfully fill the gap. From the peak-to-peak business-cycle years of 1979 to 1999, the fraction of the gap left unfilled among non-elderly families in poverty has expanded by 25 percent, while the unfilled gap has increased by 50 percent among single female-headed families, families headed by non-whites, and families residing in the Northeast. In a given year the poor in the South fill considerably less of the poverty gap with cash welfare, but make up for much of the shortfall with higher payments of food stamps, SSI, and SSDI. Over time the poor in all regions of the country have substituted SSI, SSDI, and the EITC for cash welfare. Indeed, by 1999 the unfilled gap for families with related children present would be one-fifth larger without the EITC. With the exception of married-couple families, this apparent rate of replacement of disability payments and tax credits for cash welfare is less than one for one, leaving most poor families, especially non-white families and single female-headed families, financially more vulnerable today than in previous decades.

Social assistance and inactivity traps have long been considered as one of the main causes of the poor employment performance of EU countries. The success of New Labour in the UK has triggered a growing interests in instruments capable of combining the promotion of responsibility and self-sufficiency with solidarity with less skilled workers. Making-work-pay (MWP) policies, consisting of transfers to households with low earning capacity, have quickly emerged as the most politically acceptable instruments in tax-benefit reforms of many Anglo-Saxon countries. This chapter explores the impact of introducing the British Working Families’ Tax Credit (WFTC) in three EU countries with rather different labor market and welfare institutions: Finland, France and Germany. Simulating the reform reveals that, while first-round effects on income distribution is considerable, the interaction of the new instrument with the structural characteristics of the economy and the population may lead to counterproductive second round effects (i.e. changes in economic behavior). The implementation of the reform, in this case, could only be justified if the social inclusion (i.e. transition into activity) of some specific household types (singles and single mothers) is valued more than a rise in the employment per se.

In-work transfers are often seen as a good trade-off between redistribution and efficiency as they alleviate poverty among low-wage households, while increasing financial incentives to work. In the context of the recent economic downturn, they have been advocated to offset the disincentive effect of wage cuts and to cushion the negative redistributive impact of earnings losses and cuts in the minimum wage. We study this double effect for Ireland, a country deeply affected by the economic crisis, and for which existing in-work support policies are of limited scope. The employment and poverty effects of alternative policies are analysed thanks to counterfactual simulations built using a micro-simulation model, the Living in Ireland Survey 2001 and labour supply estimations. We focus on an extension of the existing scheme, the Family Income Supplement and its replacement by the refundable tax credit in force in the United Kingdom.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the distributional impact of personal income tax in Canada and China over the most recent decade.

The Urban Household Survey in China and the Canadian Socio‐Economic Information Management System data are employed.

It was found that, in both Canada and China, the personal income taxes are progressive, that is, tax payments and average tax rates are increasing in the income share of high‐income taxpayers.

This paper does not explore the connection between tax progressivity differences and social, political, and cultural differences in the two countries.

This paper is of interest to policy makers, economists, and academics, who seek to design an income tax system which can mitigate income inequity efficiently. Given that income taxes have changed in China in recent years, future studies should be conducted to compare the distributional impacts of the new tax system against those of the old tax system.

This is the first study of distributional impact of income tax in China. This is also the first study to compare tax distribution between China and a developed country.