En l’absence d’adaptation, les dangers climatiques continueront de faire augmenter les coûts d’entretien des infrastructures publiques de transport de l’Ontario tout au long du siècle. Adapter les infrastructures publiques de transport pour résister aux dangers climatiques sera moins coûteux à long terme que de ne pas procéder à l’adaptation
Consulter le document »

Ce rapport examine comment l’évolution des précipitations extrêmes, des chaleurs extrêmes et des cycles gel/dégel affectera les coûts du maintien à long terme de l’infrastructure publique de transport en bon état de fonctionnement.

La réponse du gouvernement fédéral à l’agitation économique causée par la pandémie a montré ce qu’il est possible de faire avec des fonds publics. De nouveaux programmes à grande échelle ont été créés et financés pour pour s’assurer que les mesures de santé publique nécessaires n’ajoutent pas une crise financière à la crise sanitaire. Le budget fédéral alternatif du CCPA indique clairement que le Canada doit monter plus de leadership public pour réparer les dommages causés par la pandémie.
Consulter le document »

Le Canada se trouve à un carrefour. Nous sommes confrontés à de nombreux problèmes pressants qui exigent des actions immédiates, notamment : La COVID-19 et ses répercussions, l’inflation qui gruge des chèques de paie stagnants, nos réseaux de santé poussés à leurs limites, la crise climatique et la nécessité de démanteler le colonialisme et le racisme systémique.

C’est pour cette raison que l’équipe du Centre canadien de politiques alternatives travaille avec plusieurs experts et expertes et de nombreuses personnes œuvrant en première ligne à l’élaboration de son plan annuel de changement en profondeur. Le Budget fédéral alternatif (BFA) est une approche audacieuse pour s’attaquer aux problèmes qui touchent directement les Canadiens et Canadiennes. Le BFA propose des solutions et remet directement la responsabilité au gouvernement fédéral, en collaboration avec les provinces et les territoires, d’apporter les changements nécessaires pour se mesurer au défi — car il faut plus que jamais auparavant faire preuve de leadership public.

Une comparaison des principaux indicateurs de finances publiques à partir des cadres financiers des principaux partis politiques.
Consulter le document »

Dans le cadre de la campagne électorale provinciale 2022, la CFFP a organisé une série de conférences sur des enjeux de finances publiques qui s’est terminée par un débat. En marge de ces activités, et comme lors des dernières campagnes électorales, la CFFP produit une synthèse des cadres financiers des partis politiques.

L’exercice consistant à la préparation et à la publication des cadres financiers par les partis dans une campagne électorale est utile et pertinent. Il s’agit d’un exercice exigeant pour les partis, mais qui a le mérite de les forcer à chiffrer leurs promesses, que ce soit l’ajout ou le changement d’un programme ou d’un impôt. Ils doivent alors montrer comment ces promesses s’inscrivent dans un cadre budgétaire de court et de moyen terme.

La présente synthèse indique les principaux engagements touchant les revenus et les dépenses, et leur effets sur une série d’indicateurs de finances publiques.  Évidemment, il convient de souligner que la présentation ne porte aucune appréciation de la pertinence des mesures ni de la faisabilité à les mettre en œuvre. Cette synthèse se veut surtout une source d’information supplémentaire aux lecteurs pour faciliter la compréhension et la comparaison de cadres financiers préparés par les principaux partis politiques. 

Le Dividende pour la relance au Canada devrait générer 604M$ par année à compter de 2022-2023. 
Consulter le document »

Le Dividende pour la relance au Canada est un impôt ponctuel imposé aux groupes de banques et d’assureurs-vie. Le montant à payer est calculé comme étant 15 % du revenu imposable moyen basé au Canada pour 2020 et 2021, moins une déduction de 1 milliard. Celui-ci sera imposé pour l’année d’imposition 2022 et sera payable en montants égaux sur cinq ans.

Il est à noter que cette définition suit ce qui est prévu dans l’avant-projet de loi et diffère de ce qui a été publié dans le budget 2022. L’assiette fiscale initialement proposée pour cette mesure était le revenu imposable de 2021 basé au Canada au lieu de la moyenne sur deux ans.

Le DPB estime à 3,0 milliards de dollars les recettes totales de la surtaxe sur les profits des institutions financières.

La taxe supplémentaire aux banques et aux assureurs-vie devrait générer 2,3G$ de recettes au cours des 5 années. 
Consulter le document »

Le budget de 2022 prévoit une augmentation de 1,5 point de pourcentage du taux d’imposition du revenu des sociétés sur le revenu imposable des groupes de banques et d’assureurs-vie au-delà d’un seuil de 100 millions de dollars. Au-delà de ce seuil, le taux fédéral global d’imposition du revenu des sociétés passera de 15,0 pour cent à 16,5 pour cent pour toutes les années d’imposition se terminant après le jour du budget de 2022. Dans le cas d’une année d’imposition comprenant le jour du budget, l’impôt supplémentaire est calculé au prorata selon le nombre de jours compris dans l’année d’imposition après le jour du budget.

Le DPB estime à 2,3 milliards de dollars les recettes totales de la taxe supplémentaire aux banques et aux assureurs-vie.

Les citoyens et les représentants élus savent-ils vraiment comment les gouvernements taxent et dépensent ? Trop souvent, ils ne le savent pas. Et l’impact fiscal de COVID-19 a rendu la transparence des budgets et des états financiers des gouvernements plus importante que jamais. Comme l’indiquent les notes allant de A à D dans ce bulletin, certains des gouvernements supérieurs du Canada fournissent des informations utiles et opportunes, mais d’autres sont loin d’être à la hauteur.

Consulter le document »

Canada’s senior governments raise and spend huge amounts, and have legally unlimited capacity to borrow when their expenses exceed their revenues. Holding public officials accountable for their spending, taxing and borrowing is a foundational task in a system of representative government. Citizens have the right to know, and elected representatives have duties to them.

While much of the financial information presented to legislators and the public by Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial governments has improved over time, the C.D. Howe Institute’s 2022 report card reveals shortfalls. Too many governments present information that is opaque, misleading and late.

This report card on the usefulness of governments’ budgets, estimates and financial statements assigns letter grades that reflect how readily an interested but non-expert user can find, understand and act on the information they should contain. In this year’s report card – which covers year-end financial statements for fiscal year 2020/21, and budgets and estimates for 2021/22 – Alberta and Yukon topped the class with grades of A and A- respectively. Nunavut, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick each scored B+, Ontario scored a B, and Quebec scored a B-. Prince Edward Island scored a C+, and Nova Scotia scored a C. The federal government and Newfoundland and Labrador got grades of D+. Manitoba, British Colombia and the Northwest Territories were at the bottom of the class with grades of D.

In some respects, this mixed picture represents improvement. Two decades ago, none of Canada’s senior governments budgeted and reported revenues, expenses and surpluses or deficits on the same accounting basis; today, presentations consistent with public sector accounting standards are the rule. Canada’s governments, however, can do better.

The Northwest Territories could improve its grade with better budget presentations and interim updates. Alberta could improve its grade by releasing its estimates in one document. Newfoundland and Labrador could improve its grade with a more timely release of its budget and estimates. Most senior governments could improve their grades with more timely releases of public accounts: only two – Alberta and Saskatchewan – released theirs within 90 days of the end of the fiscal year. The federal government, which earned a grade of F in last year’s report card, mainly because of its egregious and unprecedented failure to produce a budget, was slow to release its public accounts because it reopened the books – another worrying precedent from a government that should be setting the standard for transparent, reliable and timely financial information.

Massive increases in spending and borrowing by governments in response to the COVID-19 crisis, and ambitions for new social programs and industrial policies in its aftermath, have raised the stakes – and, unfortunately, coincided with some serious backsliding in the transparency and timeliness of financial information.

This annual report card hopes to encourage further progress and limit backsliding. Canadians can get more transparent financial reporting and better fiscal accountability from their governments, if they demand it.

En 2021, la famille canadienne moyenne a gagné revenu de 99 030 $ et a payé des impôts totaux de 42 547 $ (43,0 %). En 1961, la famille moyenne avait un revenu de 5 000 $ et payait un impôt total de 1 675 $ (33,5 %).

Consulter le document »

The Canadian Consumer Tax Index tracks the total tax bill of the average Canadian family from 1961 to 2021. Including all types of taxes, that bill has increased by 2,440% since 1961.

Taxes have grown much more rapidly than any other single expenditure for the average Canadian family: from 1961 to 2021, expenditures on shelter increased by 1,751%, clothing by 643%, and food by 790%.

The 2,440% increase in the tax bill has also greatly outpaced the increase in the Consumer Price Index (802%), which measures the average price that consumers pay for food, shelter, clothing, transportation, health and personal care, education, and other items.

The average Canadian family now spends more of its income on taxes (43.0%) than it does on basic necessities such as food, shelter, and clothing combined (35.7%). By comparison, 33.5% of the average family’s income went to pay taxes in 1961 while 56.5% went to basic necessities.

In 2021, the average Canadian family earned an income of $99,030 and paid total taxes equaling $42,547 (43.0%). In 1961, the average family had an income of $5,000 and paid a total tax bill of $1,675 (33.5%).

Ce document est le premier d’une série en deux parties qui examine la difficulté de mesurer la pauvreté au Canada, et met notamment en lumière les problèmes liés à l’utilisation de la mesure du panier de consommation. Comme la pauvreté est un problème personnel grave pour de nombreux Canadiens et qu’elle est aussi une préoccupation sociale et économique importante qui influence les dépenses et les politiques gouvernementales, il est crucial de bien la mesurer.

Consulter le document »

This essay examines the Market Basket Measure (MBM), anointed as Canada’s “official poverty line” in 2018, and finds a number of problems with it, not least that it is set too high to be useful as a measure of poverty. A family of four in our largest cities would have to earn in excess of $62,000 per year to escape poverty according to the MBM. It seems as if the developers of the MBM were pulled in two directions—the first towards a basic needs basket approach and the second towards a relative approach that would be high enough to satisfy notions of inclusion and participation. In the end, it appears that they have not succeeded on either front.

The essay also examines issues with income as an indicator of economic well-being and finds real problems there as well. We use income to measure the extent of poverty because there is no other obvious option. However, the essay urges that other ways be considered to get a more accurate measure of the nature and extent of poverty and it points to a potential alternative.

Ce rapport complète les résultats du Projet résilience sous l’angle de l’analyse différenciée selon les sexes plus (ADS+). Il comprend aussi une revue de la littérature et une sélection de pistes d’action.
Consulter le document »

Quel constat?

Deux années de pandémie de COVID-19 ont affecté inégalement la population québécoise selon ses conditions de vie et de travail. Les conséquences de la crise sanitaire ont été disproportionnées pour plusieurs groupes dont les femmes. Les Québécoises ont été particulièrement touchées en raison de la prédominance féminine dans les secteurs d’emploi plus exposés au risque d’infection (comme la santé) ou plus susceptibles de subir des pertes d’emploi (comme les services et les emplois à bas salaire), mais aussi à cause de responsabilités accrues pendant les fermetures d’écoles et de services de garde, et plus largement du travail de soin qui relève très majoritairement des femmes. 

Dans quelle mesure la pandémie a-t-elle particulièrement touché les femmes ? 

À la différence des dernières crises économiques, la crise sanitaire liée à la COVID-19 a affecté plus fortement les femmes et leur situation d’emploi par rapport à celle des hommes en raison des effets des mesures préventives (p. ex. distanciation physique, confinement) et de la prédominance féminine dans la santé, l’éducation et les services.

• Les pertes d’emplois enregistrées dans la première année de pandémie ont davantage touché le temps partiel, le travail à bas salaire et les petites entreprises du secteur des services, où les femmes sont en proportion plus nombreuses.
• Les femmes ont assumé une plus grande part de la garde d’enfants et de l’école à la maison, ainsi que du travail de soin d’après la littérature examinée. C’est en particulier le cas des femmes noires et philippines qui se trouvent surreprésentées dans le personnel aide-infirmier, aide-soignant et préposé aux bénéficiaires.
• Dans un contexte de fermeture d’écoles et de services de garde, les responsabilités familiales se sont alourdies, alors qu’elles incombaient déjà davantage aux mères. La situation spécifique des femmes défavorisées est rarement prise en compte dans les études sur la conciliation travail-famille.
• Le coup de sonde effectué à la fin de la troisième vague (été 2021) a révélé que 42 % des femmes appartenant aux moins nanties étaient préoccupées par leur santé mentale contre 32 % des hommes sondés.
• Les entrevues réalisées par la suite auprès de quelques femmes montrent leur rôle invisible et pourtant essentiel à plus d’un titre : comme grands-mères pour assurer la garde de leurs petits-enfants (certaines ont même devancé leur départ à la retraite), en tant que mères par l’aide apportée à leurs enfants adultes, ou encore comme citoyennes par le soutien manifesté à leur voisinage ou communauté.

Quelles pistes de solution ?

Parmi les pistes d’action privilégiées dans la littérature consultée autant que par les citoyennes interrogées figurent l’augmentation des revenus, l’amélioration des conditions de travail, la disponibilité de logements adéquats ainsi qu’un meilleur accès aux soins de santé et aux activités communautaires.

L’Alberta pourrait raisonnablement s’attendre à mieux réussir à attirer des activités d’assurance captive de la part d’entreprises canadiennes, étant donné la capacité d’assurer ou de réassurer des risques canadiens sans conséquences fiscales négatives.
Des mesures de représailles de la part d’autres provinces ou du gouvernement fédéral seraient fédéral seraient peu probables, à moins que l’Alberta ne réduise ou n’élimine l’impôt provincial sur le revenu des captives.

Consulter le document »

Alberta now permits the creation of captive insurance companies. Captive insurance companies insure their shareholders’ risks and sometimes those of their shareholders’ customers. Captives are licensed insurance companies controlled by a single firm or by firms that are part of an industry association. While the cost savings captives can provide are beneficial, national or multilateral tax policies can impact the viability of captive insurance structures. This paper discusses the tax policy issues that may affect Alberta’s captive insurance regime.

More than half of the world’s approximately 7,000 captives are located in the United States; there are only an estimated 20 located in Canada. Most of the other captives are in Caribbean low-tax jurisdictions or tax havens. Alberta cannot compete with Caribbean tax rates and will therefore probably not be successful in attracting captive insurance business if its regulatory policy treats captives like regular insurers.

Working in Alberta’s favour are recently enacted and proposed multilateral tax avoidance measures which will result in higher costs for creating and maintaining a captive in a tax haven jurisdiction. If the OECD’s Pillar II proposals come to fruition, they also require all in-scope captives to pay a minimum 15 per cent tax rate regardless of residence.

This paper reviews the significant Canadian tax issues that affect captive insurance companies, including GST/HST, federal excise taxes, provincial premium taxes and income tax. It also breaks down the likelihood of attracting non-Canadian versus domestic captives, looking at possible regulatory and tax policy structures and their likelihood of success. 

Alberta will probably not attract captive insurance business from non-Canadian multinational enterprises. However, the ability to insure or reinsure Canadian risks while avoiding negative tax consequences and achieving potential tax and tax compliance savings makes Alberta more attractive for captive insurance business from Canadian firms. While there is a possibility that other provinces or the federal government could retaliate if Alberta engages in aggressive inter-provincial tax competition, retaliation is unlikely unless Alberta materially reduces or eliminates provincial income taxes for captives. 

The external wealth of nations provides estimates of each country’s external financial assets and liabilities. These data also yield estimates of each country’s net international investment position, the difference between its total external financial assets and its total external liabilities. 
Consulter le document »

The primary sources of data are individual countries’ balance of payments (BOP) and international investment position (IIP) statistics, disseminated by the International Monetary Fund. The sole conceptual difference is that our data exclude central bank gold holdings from financial assets (since they are not a claim on another country).

The EWN data expand both the time series and the country coverage of IIP statistics to include virtually every economy in the world from 1970 onward, using alternative data and methods to fill in where the IIP data are missing or where IIP estimates may be incomplete or imprecise. With regard to time series coverage, IIP data for India start in 1996, for Brazil in 2001, and for China in 2004. And with regard to country coverage, the EWN database includes economies such as Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and several Caribbean offshore centers (such as Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, and the Cayman Islands) that do not publish IIP statistics or publish an incomplete version (excluding the main sovereign wealth fund for Kuwait and excluding most of the offshore sector for Bermuda and the Cayman Islands).

These extended statistics rely on a variety of data sources, which includes partner-country bilateral data from the IMF Coordinated Direct Investment Survey and the IMF Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey (for countries that do not publish estimates of their external assets and liabilities, or publish only an incomplete version); cumulative flows with valuation adjustments; World Bank and IMF statistics on external debt; UNCTAD statistics on foreign direct investment; and a variety of national sources. Useful inputs for historical data are also provided by a book by Stefan Sinn (“Net External Asset Positions of 145 Countries,“ Kieler Studien no. 224, Institut für Weltwirtschaft an der Universität Kiel, Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr).

Le CBO examine comment l’inflation a affecté les ménages à différents niveaux de revenus et compare l’inflation depuis 2019 avec la croissance du revenu des ménages sur la même période.
Consulter le document »

Inflation affects households differently depending on the mix of goods and services that they consume and the income that they have available to pay for that consumption. In this report, the Congressional Budget Office examines how inflation has affected households at different income levels and compares inflation since 2019 with the growth in household income over the same period.

For this analysis, the agency used data about households’ consumption in 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic. To focus on the effects of changes in prices, CBO held quantities of consumption constant by considering an average bundle of goods and services purchased in that year by households in each quintile (or fifth) of the income distribution. CBO used two measures of income: market income and income after transfers and taxes. Market income consists of labor income, business income, capital income, and other income from nongovernmental sources. Income after transfers and taxes accounts for additional factors such as cash payments from the government (or transfers) and federal taxes. Both measures were adjusted to remove the cost of health care benefits that people receive from the government or their employer because CBO does not have comparable data about prices, quantities, or subsidies for such benefits.

CBO found that the effects of inflation have changed over time and varied by income group and income measure. The two income measures have followed different paths. Total adjusted income after transfers and taxes increased more than prices in 2020 and 2021, but such income is projected to fall in 2022 in real terms (that is, after the effects of inflation are removed), primarily because temporary fiscal policies related to the pandemic ended. By contrast, total adjusted market income increased more than prices in every year of the 2020–2022 period, CBO estimates.

Ce rapport offre un portrait complet des dispositions fiscales temporaires qui sont régulièrement prolongées en tant que groupe par le Congrès, plutôt que d’être autorisées à expirer comme prévu, souvent appelées « prorogations fiscales ».
Consulter le document »

Numerous temporary tax provisions expired at the end of 2021, with other temporary tax provisions set to expire in 2022 or the coming years. Collectively, temporary tax provisions that are regularly extended as a group by Congress, rather than being allowed to expire as scheduled, are often referred to as “tax extenders.”

Most recently, tax extenders were included in the Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Tax Relief Act of 2020, enacted as Division EE of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (P.L. 116-260). P.L. 116-260 extended temporary tax provisions, making some temporary provisions permanent, extending some through 2025, and providing a short-term (generally oneyear) extension for energy-related provisions. Most of the energy-related provisions that were extended through 2021 expired, but were later retroactively extended in the 2022 budget reconciliation legislation (P.L. 117-169), commonly referred to as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Because of past longer-term extensions of expiring provisions and the extension of energy-related provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, there are few expired tax provisions that were part of past tax extenders legislation. The temporary tax provisions that expired at the end of 2021, and have not yet been extended, tend to be small in their estimated revenue effect. Extending expired provisions that have previously been included in tax extenders legislation would be expected to have a small effect on overall federal tax revenues, and be small relative to the size of past tax extenders legislation.

The 117th Congress may be interested in evaluating policy options related to temporary tax policies that extend beyond the scope of what might be considered traditional tax extenders. Several temporary tax provisions enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic recession expired at the end of 2021, including a number of provisions providing tax relief to individuals and families. The 2017 tax legislation (P.L. 115-97), commonly referred to as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), included a number of provisions with delayed implementation dates, scheduled to be effective in 2022 or 2023 For example, the TCJA provision requiring the amortization of research and experimental (R&E) expenditures applies after December 31, 2021. Beginning in 2023, 100% first-year bonus depreciation starts to phase down.

There are several options for Congress to consider regarding temporary tax provisions. Provisions that expired in 2021 or are scheduled to expire in the coming years could be extended. For expired provisions, the extension could be retroactive. The extension could be short term, long term, or permanent. Another option would be to allow expired provisions to remain expired and let other provisions expire as scheduled. 

Jusqu’en septembre 2021, les auteurs estiment que le gouvernement fédéral a alloué 855 000 $ pour chaque année-emploi préservée pendant la pandémie dans les États ou les collectivités locales. 
Consulter le document »

We use an instrumental-variables estimator reliant on variation in congressional representation to analyze the effects of federal aid to state and local governments across all four major pieces of COVID-19 response legislation. Through September 2021, we estimate that the federal government allocated $855,000 for each state or local government job-year preserved. Our baseline confidence interval allows us to rule out estimates of less than $433,000. Our
estimates of effects on aggregate income and output are centered on zero and imply modest if any spillover effects onto the broader economy. We discuss aspects of the pandemic context, which include the surprising resilience of state and local tax revenues as well as of broader macroeconomic conditions, that may underlie the small employment and stimulative impacts we estimate in comparison with previous research.

Les auteurs constatent que d’importants avantages sociaux peuvent avoir un coût : l’assurance sociale peut se transformer en impôt social, créant ainsi une désincitation au travail.
Consulter le document »

In low-income communities, pressure to share income with others may disincentivize work, distorting labor supply. This paper documents that across countries, social groups that undertake more interpersonal transfers work fewer hours. Using a field experiment, the study enabled piece-rate factory workers in Côte d’Ivoire to shield income using blocked savings accounts over 3-9 months. Workers could only deposit earnings increases, relative to baseline, mitigating income effects on labor supply. The study varied whether the offered account was private or known to the worker’s network, altering the likelihood of transfer requests against saved income. When accounts were private, take-up was substantively higher (60% vs. 14%). Offering private accounts sharply increased labor supply—raising work attendance by 10% and earnings by 11%. Outgoing transfers did not decline, indicating no loss in redistribution. The estimates imply a 9-14% social tax rate. The welfare benefits of informal redistribution may come at a cost, depressing labor supply and productivity.

Ce document examine les façons dont la technologie peut être utilisée pour augmenter la mobilisation des recettes en Afrique en en relevant les défis de l’administration fiscale dans quatre grandes catégories de taxes : taxes à la consommation, taxes foncières, taxes commerciales et impôts sur le revenu.

Consulter le document »

Many African countries struggle to collect an adequate amount of tax revenue to support needed investments in public services. This paper examines how African countries may take advantage of recent advances in technology to improve tax administration. It provides an overview of the potential and challenges of different tax categories in Africa: consumption taxes, real estate taxes, trade taxes, and income taxes. It then describes the ways in which technology solutions may be deployed to address these challenges by helping to identify the tax base, monitor compliance, and facilitate compliance. Lastly, it provides insights from interviews with senior tax administrators across the continent on their practical experiences in adopting technology for taxation.

Si l’objectif d’une taxe sur les profits excessifs (TPE) est simplement de générer des recettes, elle peut être un ajout temporaire aux impôts sur le revenu des sociétés existants. De manière plus ambitieuse, si l’objectif est également de tendre vers un système efficace, la TPE peut être introduite comme une passerelle vers un impôt permanent et efficace remplaçant complètement l’impôt sur les sociétés à long terme.

Consulter le document »

This paper discusses the design of excess profits taxes (EPTs) that gained renewed interest following the COVID-19 outbreak and the recent surge in energy prices. EPTs can be designed as an efficient tax only falling on economic rent, like an allowance for corporate capital, and drawing some parallels with current proposals for reforming multinationals’ taxation. EPTs can be permanent or temporary as an add-on to the corporate income tax to support revenue during an adverse shock episode. The latter reflects experiences with EPTs during and after the World Wars. Different from that era, though, profit shifting is now a challenge. Estimation using firm-level data suggest that, at present, locations of excess profit across countries are consistent with profit shifting practices by multinationals. Destination-based EPTs can address this concern. Estimates suggest that a 10 percent EPT on the globally consolidated accounts of multinationals (on top of the current corporate income tax), with the EPT base being allocated using sales, raises global revenue by 16 percent of corporate income tax revenues. The analysis suggests that international coordination would be desirable to mitigate the risks of profit shifting and tax competition. Eventually, EPTs could mark an evolution of corporate taxation toward a non-distortionary rent tax.

En 2022, la hausse de l’inflation augmente le poids de la dette publique.
Consulter le document »

L’inflation a augmenté depuis fin 2020. En juillet 2022, elle ressort à 6,1 % sur un an, après 2,8 % fin 2021 et 0,0 % fin 2020.

Une inflation plus forte est réputée réduire le poids de la dette publique, parce qu’elle augmente le dénominateur du ratio de dette publique rapportée au PIB en valeur et facilite ainsi le  remboursement de la dette héritée du passé.

Toutefois, au-delà de cet effet « mécanique » favorable, l’impact d’une inflation plus élevée sur le ratio de dette publique est ambigu. La trajectoire de la dette publique dépend de l’importance de l’ajustement des taux d’intérêt et du solde primaire à la hausse de l’inflation.

À moyen terme, l’impact d’une inflation plus forte sur le ratio de dette publique sera positif ou négatif selon que les taux d’intérêt augmentent plus ou moins que l’inflation, via l’ajustement de la politique monétaire et l’évolution des primes de risque.

Même à court terme, l’impact n’est pas nécessairement favorable, comme le montre l’année 2022. Plusieurs facteurs doivent en effet être pris en compte : l’impact « mécanique » est positif, certes, mais il est finalement assez limité en 2022, compte tenu notamment du caractère largement importé de l’inflation actuelle ; les mesures de soutien mises en œuvre par le Gouvernement vont creuser le déficit public, tout comme l’alourdissement de la charge d’intérêts ; enfin, la perte de croissance associée à des prix et des taux d’intérêt plus élevés aura également un effet défavorable sur les finances publiques.

Au total, une fois pris en compte l’ensemble des impacts de l’inflation sur la dette publique, il ressort que le surcroît d’inflation enregistré depuis la LFI pour 2022 pousserait à la hausse, et non à la baisse, le ratio de dette publique, de l’ordre de 1,2 point de PIB en 2022. 

Les auteurs constatent qu’une structure de marché moins concurrentielle fait baisser le niveau des salaires, contribue à hauteur de 7% à l’augmentation de la prime de compétence et explique la moitié de l’augmentation de la variance des salaires entre établissements.
Consulter le document »

We propose a theory of how market power affects wage inequality. We ask how goods and labor market power jointly affect the level of wages, the Skill Premium, and wage inequality. We then use detailed microdata from the US Census between 1997 and 2016 to estimate the parameters of labor supply, technology and the market structure. We find that a less competitive market structure lowers the wage level, contributes 7% to the rise in the Skill Premium and accounts for half of the increase in between-establishment wage variance.

Ce document souligne l’importance de concevoir des mesures d’enquête qui qui saisissent comparativement les compréhensions conditionnelles et inconditionnelles du civisme fiscal.
Consulter le document »

There is mounting evidence that strengthening tax morale can have important benefits in encouraging quasi-voluntary tax compliance, building political support for reform, and supporting tax bargaining between citizens and governments. However, the literature has been plagued by an often vague, and overly aggregated, understanding of the concept of tax morale. This has consequences for our ability to understand both tax compliance, and the broader connections between taxation and the expansion of accountability in lower-income countries. Drawing on evidence from multiple surveys in sub-Saharan Africa, this paper argues that there is a need, in particular, to clearly distinguish between the more conditional and unconditional dimensions of tax morale. To develop that argument, this paper first illustrates sharp differences in responses to survey measures of tax morale based on superficially small, and common, differences in how the concept is measured. It then shows that these differences follow a clear pattern, linked to the degree to which different measures of tax morale capture more conditional or unconditional dimensions of the concept. Finally, it highlights the practical benefits of this more nuanced understanding of the concept for thinking about tax reform, and the broader character and evolution of fiscal social contracts in lower-income countries.

Ce document décortique le fonctionnement des taxes sur l’essence en Australie. 
Consulter le document »

In Australia fuel tax is collected as a tax on the production or importation of fuel, offset by a system of fuel tax credits for business users of fuel. This explainer sets out the key features of what is a complex system of taxation and tax credits that impacts both the revenue and expenditure sides of the budget.

The excise and customs duty on petroleum fuel (referred to here as fuel tax) is one of the oldest taxes in Australia, applying since Federation in 1901. For some of that time there has been a link between the amount of excise raised and road funding. The formal link to road funding most recently ceased in 1992. Since then, fuel tax has been a general revenue-raising tax with only a minor link with the Australian Government’s overall level of road funding.

Australia has a relatively low fuel tax rate compared with most other OECD countries.

There are two main parts to the fuel tax system. First, fuel tax is collected from the producers or importers of fuel when fuel leaves their depot or terminal (the terminal gate); and second, a system of fuel tax credits (FTCs), which refund fuel tax to eligible businesses so they are not taxed on fuel used as a business input.

– FTCs are worth around 39% of the total tax collected.

– Three quarters of FTCs are paid to businesses in the mining industry; the transport, postal and warehousing industry; and the agriculture, forestry and fishing industry. 

– The fuel tax and FTC systems are used together as a means of charging heavy vehicle operators for their share of the cost of road infrastructure. This is done by reducing the FTCs they receive so that they ultimately pay a net amount of fuel tax that represents a Road User Charge (RUC).

The FTC system means that fuel tax is mostly paid by household users of fuel.

Adjustments to the fuel tax arrangements have been used to address cost of living pressures associated with rising fuel prices. The most recent instance was the 2022‑23 Budget measure Addressing Cost of Living Pressures – temporary reduction in fuel excise, which halved excise rates for the six-month period from 30 March 2022 to 28 September 2022.

– this measure provided temporary relief from high fuel prices for households, but the operation of the FTC system means that it provided limited relief to businesses.

En août, la dette nette s’est établie à 96,6 % du PIB. Il s’agit d’une augmentation de 1,9 % du PIB par rapport à l’année précédente, et est supérieure de 1,1 % du PIB aux prévisions de mars.
Consulter le document »

Borrowing in the first five months of 2022-23 was just £0.2 billion above our March forecast profile, with higher debt interest payments (£9.0 billion above profile) offset by downside surprises elsewhere. But energy bill support measures have yet to have a material effect on the public finances. The May package has so far added £2.4 billion to spending, with costs rising from October. This month’s much larger measures, including the energy price guarantee, will raise borrowing significantly through the second half of 2022-23. Various ONS revisions have materially lowered previous estimates of borrowing in 2021-22 and for the year to date.

L’exposition à la pandémie de COVID19 et les taux de vaccination ont continué à être des déterminants clés de politique fiscale pour les gouvernements en 2021. Ils expliquent la vitesse à laquelle certaines mesures ont été mises en œuvre, retirées ou remplacées, les pays cherchant à stimuler la reprise de la consommation et de l’investissement tout en limitant les taux d’infection.
Consulter le document »

This is the seventh edition of Tax Policy Reforms: OECD and Selected Partner Economies, an annual publication that provides comparative information on tax reforms across countries and tracks tax policy developments over time. The report covers the tax policy reforms introduced or announced in 71 member jurisdictions of the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, including all OECD countries, for the 2021 calendar year. In addition to providing an overview of tax policy reforms, and the macroeconomic and tax revenue context in which measures were introduced, the report also contains a Special Feature that examines government responses to rising energy prices and offers some policy recommendations in the event that prices remain high.