Dans ce court rapport, les auteurs calculent que pour Saskatoon, le salaire de subsistance en 2023 pour une famille ayant accès à une garderie de 10 $ par jour est de 18,50 $ par heure. Une famille n’ayant pas accès à ces services aurait besoin d’un revenu de subsistance de 20,25 $ de l’heure. 

The Saskatchewan Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ living wage calculation for Regina and Saskatoon is a little different from past years. That’s because we are presenting two different living wage calculations for both Regina and Saskatoon this year.

Last year, we made the decision to not include the cost savings from the federal/provincial $10 per day daycare program due to the inaccessibility of the program in both major cities. We reasoned that it would be unfair to expect a family to get by on a living wage that was premised on a daycare subsidy that they might not be able to access. This year we take a different tact. While difficulties accessing child care spaces continues to frustrate families across Saskatchewan, we nevertheless wanted to show how important social programs can be to a working family’s bottom line. So, this year we release a living wage calculation based on a family that can access $10 per day daycare for their one pre-school child, versus one who cannot, and must pay for alternative types of private caregiving.

For Saskatoon, the 2023 living wage for a family with access to $10 per day child care is $18.50 per hour, a drop from the $18.90 we calculated last year. In Regina, the living wage is $18.05 for a family with access to $10 per day childcare, up from $17.90 in 2022.

However, were we to remove access to both these families from $10 per day child care, the amount they would need to earn to cover those increased expenses soars. For Regina, the living wage for those who cannot access the child care program would be close to $20 per hour, at $19.80. In Saskatoon, a family would have to earn $20.25 per hour to afford the added child care expenses.

These stark differences in income demonstrate the importance of public programs that control the costs that working families would otherwise absorb. As child care has long been in the top three of expenses for our living wage family along with food and shelter, programs that can take the bite out of those costs can give working families some much needed relief.

Dans cette étude, les auteurs examinent si l’augmentation des inégalités dans la productivité des entreprises se reflète dans les inégalités de salaires à partir des données de la Base de données canadienne sur la dynamique employeurs-employés (BDCEE) pour la période 2001-2019 et dégagent un ensemble de faits stylisés.

De 2001 à 2019, on observe une hausse sans équivoque des inégalités de productivité entre les entreprises au Québec, un résultat conforme à ce qu’on observe dans plusieurs autres pays. Cette tendance à la hausse est plus importante au Québec qu’en Ontario. Il est intéressant de contraster cette hausse des inégalités de productivité à la baisse des inégalités de revenus. Une explication possible est que la transmission des différences de productivité en différences de revenus ait aussi diminué au cours de la période. Plusieurs possibilités pourraient expliquer cette diminution et l’une d’elles serait une diminution de la mobilité de la main-d’œuvre. Les auteurs examinent cette question en effectuant des décompositions de la croissance de la productivité pour le cas particulier du secteur manufacturier. Ils montrent que la croissance de la productivité dans ce secteur provient très majoritairement de la croissance de la productivité à l’intérieur de l’entreprise. La réallocation de main-d’œuvre et l’effet net d’entrée contribuent assez peu à la croissance de la productivité.

Ce rapport présente une analyse distributive de l’inflation et des revenus des ménages canadiens depuis le début de la pandémie de la COVID-19 afin d’étudier les divergences dans l’évolution du pouvoir d’achat des ménages canadiens. Il inclut aussi un portrait du pouvoir d’achat au niveau provincial et territorial.

Durant les premiers trimestres de la pandémie de la COVID-19, les prix ont cru bien en deçà de la cible d’inflation de 2 % de la Banque du Canada alors que les revenus des ménages ont été soutenus par les transferts gouvernementaux, entraînant une amélioration du pouvoir d’achat pour tous les quintiles de revenu.

Au premier trimestre de 2024, le pouvoir d’achat de la majorité des ménages est demeuré plus élevé que son niveau observé au dernier trimestre de 2019. Toutefois, depuis 2022, la montée de l’inflation et le resserrement de la politique monétaire ont entraîné une détérioration du pouvoir d’achat, affectant particulièrement les ménages les moins nantis.

En raison de la composition de leur patrimoine familial, les ménages du quintile supérieur ont vu leurs revenus d’investissements croître au-delà de leurs paiements d’intérêt. Cette augmentation nette du revenu étant supérieure à l’inflation, le pouvoir d’achat moyen de ces ménages s’est amélioré en 2023.

Quant aux ménages des autres quintiles de revenu, les augmentations des paiements d’intérêts ont été, en moyenne, supérieures à celles des revenus d’investissement pour l’année 2023. Ainsi, le pouvoir d’achat moyen des ménages du troisième et quatrième quintile a stagné alors que celui des deux quintiles inférieurs s’est détérioré.

Le pouvoir d’achat a évolué de façon disparate d’une province à une autre. Le Québec, l’Ontario et la Colombie-Britannique sont parmi les provinces qui ont connu une augmentation de leur pouvoir d’achat alors que Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador, la Nouvelle-Écosse et l’Alberta ont souffert d’une détérioration de celui-ci. Pour ces derniers, l’inflation a effacé l’avancée du revenu disponible. Dans les territoires, le pouvoir d’achat de l’ensemble des ménages a connu l’une des meilleures progressions au Canada depuis le dernier trimestre de 2019.

Ce rapport présente une mise à jour de l’analyse distributive de la redevance fédérale sur les combustibles du DPB.

Si l’on ne tient uniquement compte de l’incidence financière de la redevance fédérale sur les combustibles, le DPB estime que le ménage moyen dans chacune des provinces où le filet de sécurité fédéral s’applique (c’est-à-dire toutes les provinces à l’exception du Québec et de la Colombie-Britannique) connaîtra un gain net en 2030-2031 et recevra plus d’argent de la Remise canadienne sur le carbone que le montant total payé pour la redevance fédérale sur les combustibles (directement et indirectement) et la taxe sur les produits et services connexes.

Par rapport au revenu disponible des ménages, l’incidence uniquement financière de la redevance fédérale sur les combustibles est progressive. Autrement dit, les ménages à faible revenu sont confrontés à des coûts nets plus faibles (gains nets plus importants) que les ménages à revenu plus élevé, ce qui reflète la nature par habitant de la Remise canadienne sur le carbone.

En 2030-2031, en tenant compte des incidences financières et économiques, le DPB estime que le ménage moyen dans chacune des provinces où le filet de sécurité fédéral s’applique subira un coût net, payant davantage de la redevance fédérale sur les combustibles et de la taxe sur les produits et services connexe, et touchant des revenus moins élevés (en raison de la redevance sur les combustibles) comparativement à la Remise canadienne sur le carbone qu’il reçoit et aux impôts nets inférieurs qu’il paie (en raison des revenus moins élevés).

Les estimations du DPB concernant le coût net pour les ménages (incidences financières et économiques) de la redevance fédérale sur les combustibles révèlent une incidence plus progressive que les estimations de l’incidence financière seulement. Étant donné que la redevance sur les combustibles réduit les revenus d’emploi et de placement, qui représentent une part plus importante du revenu total des ménages à revenus élevés, leur coût net est plus élevé.

Dans le cas des provinces où le filet de sécurité fédéral s’applique, Environnement et Changement climatique Canada estime que la redevance sur les combustibles représentera près de 13 millions de tonnes de réductions de gaz à effet de serre (GES) en 2030 et qu’elle réduira le produit intérieur brut (PIB) réel de 0,6 % par rapport à un scénario sans la redevance sur les combustibles, mais où toutes les autres mesures de réduction des émissions, y compris les systèmes d’échange de droits d’émission pour les grands émetteurs, sont maintenues.

Cette étude examine l’impact de l’augmentation du taux d’inclusion des gains en capital sur les recettes fiscales personnelles au Canada, soulignant que les nouvelles projections des revenus fiscaux dépendent de plusieurs hypothèses et que les revenus supplémentaires proviendront principalement des propriétaires de sociétés privées canadiennes qui verront une augmentation de l’imposition des dividendes non admissibles.

Ottawa’s announcement in Budget 2024 of a hike in the capital gains inclusion rate from 50 percent to 67 percent on amounts over $250,000 has come with some impressive estimates of swelling personal income tax (PIT) revenues. Budget 2024 projected an increase of $8.8 billion over five years. The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) has estimated $5.8 billion. Our estimate is lower: $3.3 billion over the next five years. We outline some of the possible sources of the discrepancies. Alongside model differences, the projected PIT revenue from higher inclusion rates depends on key assumptions about the cyclical nature of capital gains realizations and the adjustments firms and individuals may make in response to the tax change.

Regardless of the magnitude of the estimated PIT revenue gains, our analysis highlights two important insights.

• First, the newly reformed alternative minimum tax (AMT) will interact with the higher inclusion rate on personal capital gains exceeding $250,000, resulting in minimal additional PIT revenue from large capital gains beyond what the AMT would have collected.
•  Second, the majority of net PIT revenue gains from the reform will come from CanadianControlled Private Corporation (CCPC) owners, ranging from doctors and lawyers to entrepreneurs and large-scale operators, who will face a higher inclusion rate on capital gains earned within their corporations, and a corresponding reduction in the amount of capital gains they can pay out as tax-free capital dividends.

We do not attempt to model corporate income tax (CIT) revenues. However, the budget’s estimated cumulative five-year increase of $10.6 billion in CIT revenues appears plausible when considering historical data on capital gains earned by corporations, particularly CCPCs, which earn the lion’s share.

Dans ce court texte, l’auteure présente l’historique et le rôle du Fonds des services de santé (FSS) dans le financement du système public de santé et de services sociaux au Québec.

L’analyse qui suit montre qu’au cours des deux dernières décennies (1999–2019), les cotisations des entreprises au FSS ont considérablement diminué en proportion de leur masse salariale, de leurs revenus imposables et de leurs bénéfices nets. Autrement dit, la contribution des entreprises au financement des services de santé par l’entremise de ce fonds a connu une croissance beaucoup moins rapide que celle de leur masse salariale, de leurs revenus et de leurs bénéfices. L’analyse permet également de mesurer les conséquences financières de cette évolution sur les revenus de l’État en général et sur le financement des services de santé en particulier, et d’estimer les revenus fiscaux annuels supplémentaires qu’il serait possible de générer en rétablissant le financement du FSS à son niveau de 1999.

Ce court texte analyse la compétitivité fiscale des entreprises au Canada, soulignant que le taux d’imposition des sociétés reste élevé par rapport aux normes internationales, et propose des réformes, telles que l’harmonisation des taxes de vente et la révision des déductions fiscales, pour stimuler les investissements et combler l’écart de prospérité avec les États-Unis.

Boosting Canada’s Competitiveness by Reforming Business Taxation suggests that only taxing profit disbursements for businesses, which include dividend payments, share buybacks, and bonuses, rather than taxing all business profits, would lead to greater business investment, increasing worker productivity, growth in the economy, and ultimately raise living standards for Canadians.

Ce texte explore les raisons derrière la stagnation de la productivité au Canada, notamment une baisse des investissements en capital et une faiblesse dans des secteurs clés comme la construction et la fabrication, en suggérant que des réformes fiscales et réglementaires sont nécessaires pour stimuler la croissance et la compétitivité.

Canada is seriously lagging in productivity growth, which is the only means countries have to raise their citizens’ standard of living. Overall, Canadian business productivity fell by 0.6 per cent over the past five years. This is in sharp contrast to the United States, which enjoyed a 10.1 per cent increase over the same period. This trend of faster U.S. growth has held true since the mid-1990s, with Canadian productivity rising by about half as much as the American rate. In fact, Canada trails not only the U.S. but all advanced countries in Northern and Western Europe, as well as Australia.

Going by sector, Canada’s recent productivity declines have been concentrated in holding companies, transportation and warehousing, construction and manufacturing. The latter three categories are responsible for two-thirds of the decline in productivity. For transportation and warehousing, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on travel are a major contributor. For construction, the decline comes from residential and non-residential work, as opposed to
engineering construction. For manufacturing, a significant source is transportation equipment manufacturing, particularly in the automotive sector.

Provincially, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador have the highest productivity, thanks to the oil and gas industry. B.C., Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba are slightly below the national average while the Maritime provinces have productivity levels 25 to 31 per cent lower than the national average.

However, Ontario and Alberta are responsible for the lion’s share of Canada’s slumping productivity growth, due to their weight in the national economy. Ontario is behind 48 per cent of the decline, while Alberta’s share is 22 per cent.

From 2020–23, Canada’s capital intensity grew only slightly — not much faster than hours worked. This means that investment has not been high enough to boost productivity. Canadian investment fell from 2.1 per cent annually from 1998–2019 to just 0.5 per cent annually between 2020 and 2023. The main culprits are non-residential buildings (such as offices and factories), along with machinery and equipment. Investment in these capital goods decreased by 5.9 per cent annually in the non-residential sector and by 3.1 per cent in machinery and equipment.

The fall in non-residential investment is likely the result of more people working from home. The fall in machinery and equipment is more puzzling. With tight labour markets, companies should want to invest in automation to save on labour costs, but this doesn’t seem to be happening.

Canada has seen essentially no productivity growth in recent years, and much of the decrease is in a few core sectors. The picture is not complete, but since the output of those industries is easy to measure, it suggests that the slowdown is real.

To increase productivity, governments should look at income tax rates, excessive red tape, regulatory harmonization, a lack of competition and barriers to foreign entry into the economy. Governments also need to look at improving their own productivity to avoid crowding out the private sector and to free up resources. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. A broad range of policy options are necessary to solve Canada’s productivity problem. 

Dans ce court texte, les auteurs estiment que la réduction d’impôt permet aux décideurs politiques d’éviter la diminution des dépenses ainsi que l’augmentation de sources de revenus plus régressives. En effet, les rédacteurs et analystes budgétaires s’alarment de la réduction d’impôt progressive, qui semble être présentée à première vue comme une approche responsable, mais qui en réalité masque les coûts importants pour l’État à long terme. Ainsi, la réduction d’impôt entraîne une diminution des recettes fiscales, rendant plus difficile l’investissement dans des domaines ayant un impact direct sur les familles et les communautés.

States are finding themselves at the mercy of automatic tax cuts as the consequences of years-old tax policies take aim at state budgets. Budget writers and analysts in several states have begun to raise the alarm about “triggered” tax cuts enacted in recent years — measures once tucked away in the fine print that are now forcing governors and legislators to scramble as revenue growth begins to slow.

In 2021, Louisiana voters approved a tax plan that combined a reduction in personal income tax rates with the end of a costly federal tax deduction. While this move was initially considered revenue neutral, the law also included provisions for automatic personal and corporate income tax cuts in the future. Starting next year, if certain conditions are met — such as reaching a specific rainy day fund balance and revenue growth target — these tax cuts will be triggered at an uncertain cost to the state. At the time of the 2021 tax reforms, Louisiana’s state economists and fiscal analysts refrained from even estimating the eventual cost of the triggered cuts, citing the unpredictability of future revenues. It now looks like the state is on track to trigger an across-the-board income tax cut that would gut revenues by $200 million to $400 million a year, even if additional tax cuts currently on the table don’t come to fruition.

Other states are also grappling with the repercussions of triggered tax cuts. West Virginia is on track for an automatic 4 percent income tax cut in 2025, due to trigger provisions included in the state’s massive 2022 tax cut plan, and is now cutting further through legislation adopted during a special legislative session that just adjourned. Kentucky policymakers, who passed legislation that same year to phase out personal income taxes entirely, are already having to admit that the state’s current financial outlook makes such plans untenable. And in Colorado, financial experts are warning about tight times ahead due, in part, to a series of triggered tax cuts on the horizon required by that state’s harmful set of tax and budget limits.

Such phased-in cuts, often presented as a more fiscally responsible approach, simply obscure their long-term costs. By 2028, we estimate that the annual price tag from the 2021-2023 wave of state tax cuts could grow to around $30 billion nationwide. Many of these cuts were designed to take effect gradually; for example, Pennsylvania’s 2022 decision to cut its corporate income tax in half over eight years means the state will see annual costs soar from $127 million in 2023 to nearly $1 billion by 2028. This approach allows current policymakers to avoid both spending cuts and increases in more regressive revenue sources, such as sales tax, needed to pay for prior income tax cuts. However, it also pushes the financial burden onto future administrations, potentially limiting funding for critical services like education and health care.

Not to mention the fact that it also undermines democratic accountability. By drawing out the implementation of deep income tax cuts, policymakers can punt their full cost — and harm — many years down the road, effectively making them someone else’s problem. In Michigan, for instance, tax rates automatically fell in 2023 due a triggered tax cut passed in 2015, when none of that state’s current legislators were even in office.

As these tax cuts take hold, states face shrinking revenues, making it harder to invest in key areas that directly impact families and communities. The bill for these cuts is coming due, and states must now confront the reality of their financial decisions. To protect vital services, policymakers should reconsider these automatic cuts and prioritize revenue solutions that address long-term needs.

Dans ce document, selon l’auteur, le Tax Cuts and Jobs Act a causé un déficit fiscal aux États-Unis pour l’année en raison de la réduction du taux d’imposition des sociétés et de l’élargissement substantiel de l’assiette de l’impôt sur les sociétés. De plus, cette loi a également entraîné une limitation de certaines déductions, notamment celles pour les charges d’intérêts nettes, les pertes d’exploitation des sociétés et plusieurs avantages sociaux.

As CBO notes, part of the reason both corporate and individual income taxes grew so much in fiscal year 2024 is because tax deadlines were postponed from fiscal year 2023 due to federally declared disaster areas. However, the growth in corporate tax revenues stands out, even after adjusting for the shift. Average corporate tax collections over the last two years reached $474 billion, $49 billion higher than the previous record high of $425 billion in 2022.

How can it be that corporate tax collections now meet or exceed the average levels seen before TCJA, when a major part of that law reduced the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent?

The main reason is that TCJA not only reduced the corporate tax rate but also substantially broadened the corporate tax base. TCJA limited deductions for net interest expense, net operating losses, and fringe benefits, required R&D expenses to be amortized over 5 or 15 years, repealed the domestic production activities deduction, and reformed international taxes. In total, these offsets were estimated by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) to raise more than $1 trillion over a decade, offsetting more than three-quarters of the $1.3 trillion cost of reducing the corporate tax rate.

A related factor is that TCJA reforms changed the timing of tax collections, shifting them out into the future. For example, the policy of 100 percent bonus depreciation, which began phasing out in 2023, shifted forward deductions for capital investment. In 2022, business taxes went up as R&D amortization and a more severe interest limitation took effect. JCT estimated that the TCJA’s business and international reforms would reduce revenue initially, but raise revenue on net by 2023, with a net revenue gain of $21 billion in 2024. We found similar results in our modeling.

Another reason corporate tax collections have grown so much is that TCJA reforms boosted economic growth and profits while encouraging companies to report more profits for tax purposes. The original JCT score was static, so it did not include the impacts of economic growth, but it did estimate how companies would shift reporting of profits to domestic sources for tax purposes. In 2018, CBO estimated TCJA would boost economic growth and the corporate profits tax base considerably, as did we, yet still underestimated just how much corporate tax revenue would grow (CBO predicted corporate tax collections would hit 1.6 percent of GDP this year but they actually hit 1.8 percent). Studies indicate TCJA did in fact strongly boost business investment and economic growth over the last few years.

As discussed in an earlier analysis, federal tax collections as a whole in recent years have surpassed our 2017 projections of both static and dynamic revenues under TCJA, even after accounting for inflation. However, as noted in that analysis, there are a multitude of other factors in play that are difficult to disentangle from the effects of TCJA, including intervening developments since TCJA such as higher tariffs and a growing trade war, a pandemic and massive fiscal packages in response, high inflation and efforts by the Federal Reserve to combat it with high interest rates, wars in Europe and the Middle East, a surge in immigration, and other major tax legislation including the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

For example, in regard to corporate taxes, the IRA introduced a new corporate alternative minimum tax, a stock buyback tax, and several green energy tax credits, the net revenue effects of which have proven difficult to pin down but likely resulted in a net corporate tax cut. Other factors, such as immigration, may have boosted corporate tax revenue.

In sum, FY24 was another strong year for federal tax collections, particularly corporate tax collections, which by many measures are above historic and projected levels. Some of this strength was anticipated, as it was part of the design of TCJA, including the effects of offsetting revenue raisers, timing shifts, and improved economic growth, while some is due to other intervening factors. Nonetheless, growth in spending, particularly interest on the debt, has swamped much of these gains, producing another year with an alarmingly high deficit.

Dans court texte, l’auteur est d’avis que les Américains qui vivent à l’étranger ont besoin d’un allègement fiscal sur les coûts de mise en conformité. Bien que seul un petit nombre d’Américains vivent à l’étranger et tentent de se conformer à la législation américaine, la politique d’imposition globale pour les particuliers constitue une charge importante à respecter, non seulement en ce qui concerne le paiement de l’impôt, mais surtout pour la production de la déclaration d’impôt. En général, les Américains à l’étranger doivent peu ou pas d’impôts, mais demeurent tout de même obligés de respecter leur fardeau d’obligation en produisant annuellement une déclaration d’impôt complexe à comprendre et difficile à remplir.

Last week, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump stated “I support ending the double taxation of overseas Americans.” The US, unusually among developed economies, at least nominally requires all citizens to pay income tax, regardless of whether they live or work inside the US. Trump’s proposal would bring the US more in line with most other developed economies, which tax only those who live and work within their borders.

This issue affects relatively few Americans, as most of them live and earn within the US and would pay income tax under any tax system. Only a few million Americans live abroad. But to a small number of Americans who live abroad and do their best to comply with US law, the unusual policy of global taxation at the individual level is a significant burden.

For most, the burden is not the payment of tax: it is the filing of tax. Most Americans abroad likely owe nothing, or relatively little. However, the rules are different from, and more complicated than, the rules for Americans living in the US. Furthermore, as those rules reflect relatively few people, there are fewer resources—such as software or tax professionals—available to help them file.

The main repository of tax information for Americans abroad is IRS Publication 54, which spans roughly 60,000 words. But some of the most important information can be seen right at the top, where the IRS discusses thresholds that change each year from inflation adjustment. Americans are required to file even with very low incomes—functionally, those just above the standard deduction amount. For example, the filing threshold for a single individual was $13,850 in 2023. However, there was also a large foreign earned income exclusion of $120,000 for 2023 filers; this exemption effectively exceeds the income from most jobs abroad, even the relatively high-earning jobs that Americans tend to hold.

One could think of this exemption as a partial—but incomplete—move toward a territorial system for individuals, which would match other developed economies and tax people only where they live and work. However, beyond this exemption—and especially in capital income, whether held in individual brokerage accounts or in foreign pension funds—the rules can become significantly more complex.

Overall, the combination of the low filing requirement and the high exemption for earned income means that many Americans are required to file complex annual returns that ultimately owe little or no tax. From a tax policy perspective, this is the opposite of what we hope for. Taxes should bring in a lot of revenue for relatively little administrative work, not the other way around.

One could understand why the US would not want to use a residence-based system for the absolute wealthiest Americans; a billionaire nominally living on a small Caribbean island to avert large amounts of US income tax would be a legitimate policy problem. But a residence-based tax system would make sense for the vast majority of Americans abroad, whose incomes are relatively ordinary, already taxed by the countries in which those incomes are earned, and not a significant source of tax revenue.

One important development coming in this space is an expected reduction in the fee to renounce US citizenship, from $2,350 to $450. The State Department has not finalized this reduction, but it has given public notice of its intent to do so. US citizens living abroad may renounce their citizenships in greater numbers after this fee is reduced—not because they feel un-American, and not even to avoid tax payments, but to avoid onerous filing alone.

Renunciations have already risen in the recent past as compliance has become more difficult. The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found that the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act of 2010 (FATCA), which was primarily intended to target serious cases of tax evasion, has unfortunately also resulted in duplicative requirements on people with modest incomes who would owe little tax. As a result, the GAO states, “annual approvals of renunciations of U.S. citizenship increased from 1,601 to 4,449—or nearly 178 percent—from 2011 through 2016, attributable in part to the difficulties cited above.”

A tax reform effort in the next Congress, which seems likely primarily for domestic reasons, should also consider simplifying tax filing for Americans abroad, largely by eliminating paperwork requirements for those Americans who would owe little or no tax anyway.

Dans ce document, selon les auteurs, aux États-Unis, les promesses des politiciens américains de réduire ou de ne pas augmenter les impôts pour certains groupes de revenus, notamment les ménages de la classe moyenne, empêchent d’atteindre leurs objectifs de politiques fiscales. En effet, selon l’analyse du modèle de microsimulation du Tax Policy Center, les contribuables qui se voient imposer un plus grand seuil d’imposition ne semblent pas toujours être les groupes visés par ces promesses rendant plus difficile la mise en place de réformes fiscales et allant à l’encontre de la progressivité d’une politique fiscale optimale.

To start, we estimate a baseline where federal tax receipts will total $4.8 trillion and the average household will pay 19.8 percent of their income in taxes in 2025. We then simulate a 10 percent tax increase under five different income-specific, no-tax-increase thresholds: $0 (or no threshold), $100,000, $250,000, $400,000, and $1,000,000. 

With no threshold, a 10 percent rate increase would apply to all tax brackets and raise $221 billion in additional tax revenue in 2025. The average federal tax rate would increase by 1.1 percentage points. But, as income thresholds for holding taxpayers harmless climb, that projected revenue gain declines (Figure 1).

For example, with a no-tax-increase-below-$100,000 threshold, a 10 percent rate increase would raise $166 billion. But under a $400,000 pledge, the rate change would raise only $71 billion, and under a $1 million pledge, the rate change would raise just $39.4 billion. 

The steep decline in revenue reflects the fact that each increase in the threshold eliminates a larger share of taxpayers, and therefore income, from the tax base. For example, the $400,000 threshold excludes more than 95 percent of tax units.  

As the income no-tax-pledge threshold rises, the average tax rate for households under the threshold falls. For example, if the threshold were $100,000, the increase in the average tax rate of those earning $100,000 or less would be 0.5 percentage points, a 44 percent reduction compared to the 0.9 percentage point change under a no-threshold policy. Likewise, with a $400,000 threshold, the increase in the average tax rate for households earning between $400,000 and $1 million would fall from 1.7 to 0.7 percentage points, or a 58 percent reduction. 

But the groups who benefit the most from higher thresholds aren’t always the taxpayers that a pledge targets. This diminishes the progressivity of the tax code. For instance, when the no-tax income threshold climbs from $250,000 to $400,000, taxpayers in that income group avoid a 0.4 percentage point increase in their tax burden (saving $6.4 billion). But taxpayers earning between $400,000 and $1,000,000 save even more (0.5 percentage points or $13.3 billion).  

Because of how average and marginal tax rates work, taxpayers earning more than $400,000 avoid tax increases on their share of income under the threshold, or between $250,000 and $400,000 in this case. 

This feature of the tax code will make the work of the next Congress and presidential administration harder as they determine whether and how to extend the TCJA, which the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation estimate would cost nearly $5 trillion (including additional interest on the debt) over ten years.  

Some have proposed an extension of the TCJA that maintains individual income tax cuts only for households under $400,000. But that pledge runs into problems just like the ones modeled in our paper. It risks introducing further complexities and behavioral distortions that run counter to optimal tax policy. And, these make it more difficult to implement important reforms, like those for Social Security and paid family leave, because funding these reforms would likely not be pledge-compliant.  

This is no small problem for a federal government already struggling with debt. While middle-class tax pledges may be good politics, they’re bad for our tax code and fiscal health. 

Cette note évalue la capacité fiscale des États membres de l’Union économique et monétaire ouest-africaine (UEMOA), en examinant les écarts fiscaux, l’effort fiscal, et les dépenses fiscales, tout en suggérant des réformes pour améliorer la mobilisation des recettes fiscales et harmoniser les systèmes fiscaux des pays membres.

La quatrième Conférence internationale sur le financement du développement qui se tiendra en Espagne du 30 juin au 3 juillet 2025 discutera et renouvellera la stratégie de mobilisation des ressources nécessaires à l’atteinte les Objectifs du développement durable (ODD). Elle succède à la conférence d’Addis-Abeba de 2015 qui soulignait le rôle essentiel des systèmes fiscaux nationaux pour le financement du développement. La mobilisation des recettes intérieures, en particulier fiscales, est ainsi devenue une priorité de nombreux pays engagés dans de multiples réformes fiscales. 

Ce rapport s’intéresse à la dette publique mondiale qui ne cesse d’augmenter, en soulignant que des ajustements fiscaux bien plus importants que ceux actuellement prévus sont nécessaires pour stabiliser cette dette afin de reconstruire des réserves fiscales de manière favorable à la croissance.

Global public debt is elevated. It is projected to exceed US$100 trillion in 2024 and will rise over the medium term. This chapter shows that risks to the debt outlook are heavily tilted to the upside. In a severely adverse scenario, global debt is estimated to be nearly 20 percentage points of GDP higher three years ahead than the baseline projection, reaching 115 percent of GDP. Much larger fiscal adjustments than currently planned are required to stabilize (or reduce) debt with high probability. Now is an opportune time for rebuilding fiscal buffers and delaying is costly. Rebuilding fiscal buffers in a growth-friendly manner and strengthening fiscal governance is essential to ensure sustainable public finances and financial stability. 

Ce texte s’intéresse à la Corée qui connaîtra un changement radical avec le vieillissement de sa population, soulignant que la durabilité fiscale du système de pension nécessitera de nouveaux ajustements.

Population aging in Korea will pose substantial challenges to the financial sustainability of its public pension system. Under current policies and plausible assumptions, public pension spending can increase by as much as 4 percent of GDP during 2020-70, while contribution revenue will largely stay constant. This expected rise in public pension spending mainly reflects the increase in the old-age dependency ratio (and therefore the number of pension recipients), the deceleration in GDP growth in response to demographic changes, and, to a lesser extent, the maturing of the National Pension Scheme. Three pension policies are considered to stabilize the public debt- to-GDP ratio: a retirement age increase, higher social security contributions, and a lower pension replacement rate, and a combination of all three. The adjustments need to be large to stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio if each policy lever is used in isolation. A combination of smaller adjustments of multiple parameters yields better results.

Ce document indique qu’au Royaume-Uni, bien que les dispositifs fiscaux aient longtemps été conçus pour stimuler l’épargne-retraite, l’avènement de l’inscription automatique a révélé une faible sensibilité des nouveaux épargnants à ces incitations, soulevant des doutes quant à l’efficacité de cette politique auprès des populations potentiellement sous-prévoyantes.

This paper estimates the responsiveness of retirement saving to tax incentives for employees in Great Britain and shows how this responsiveness interacts with automatic enrolment into workplace retirement plans. For identification, I exploit a kink in the income tax schedule where there is a large, discontinuous change in the marginal price of retirement saving. Prior to the introduction of automatic enrolment, I estimate an intensive-margin elasticity of -0.21 and an extensive-margin elasticity of -0.12, suggesting that employees respond only weakly to this tax incentive to save even in a world without defaults. In 2013 to 2019, after the introduction of automatic enrolment, I find an even lower elasticity. I show this is because the large number of savers automatically enrolled into retirement accounts are entirely unresponsive to the tax incentive, even though they are potentially precisely the group policymakers might worry are undersaving for retirement. This finding has important implications for the targeting of retirement saving incentives.

Cette édition de l’étude sur le système fiscal ghanéen fournit une vue d’ensemble du système fiscal au début de l’année 2024.

The Government of Ghana published the maiden edition of its Medium-Term Revenue Strategy (MTRS) in September 2023 which outlines the tax revenue objectives of the Government and the main tax policy and administration interventions to be undertaken between 2024-2027. In the context of ambitious revenue mobilisation goals and a challenging fiscal outlook, the design of the country’s tax system is a crucial issue for policymakers.

This edition of the Survey of the Ghana’s Tax System provides a comprehensive overview of the tax system as of the start of 2024, and updates an earlier edition published in 2021. The Survey is intended as a repository of key information for researchers, policymakers, and the public, as well as highlighting revenue and policy trends and patterns of note, as a first step for identifying challenges and areas for reform.

Dans cette étude, les auteurs proposent que la nouvelle chancelière est confrontée à un héritage fiscal difficile. Les choix qu’elle fera en matière d’impôts et de dépenses lors de ce premier budget pourraient définir le reste de la législature.

Welcome to the IFS 2024 Green Budget.

This year’s edition will be the first produced under a Labour government during my tenure as Director of IFS. Given the change of government, this year’s Budget will be particularly significant, likely signalling the broad direction of policy on tax and spending for the rest of the parliament. It will also be the first ever in the UK presented by a female Chancellor.

Ms Reeves inherits a difficult legacy. The economy has grown faster than expected this year, but the recovery is not yet secure, and productivity growth remains disappointing. Even if much-needed reforms can be delivered, growth is unlikely to come fast enough to ease the painful choices the Chancellor will need to make if she is to stick to her own fiscal rules. There is speculation that the details of the debt rule will be changed, but the specific definition matters less than making a coherent case for any borrowing and ensuring any investment is well spent. And Ms Reeves will still be constrained by her commendable commitment to aim for current budget balance over the medium term.

Much of the challenge was foreseeable. Existing spending plans always looked implausibly tight. Agreeing in full to the recommendations of the Pay Review Bodies may have been unavoidable given recruitment and retention problems across the public sector, not to mention widespread industrial action. But it will be expensive. If the government wishes to avoid real-terms cuts to budgets for public services – one interpretation of its pledge that there will be ‘no return to austerity’ – it could need to find an extra £20 billion a year. Even that would not be enough to deliver ambitious improvements.

Ce rapport d’évaluation des prévisions (FER) du Royaume-Uni se concentre sur la performance des prévisions économiques et fiscales publiées en mars pour l’exercice 2023-2024, notamment de l’impact de l’inflation sur les recettes fiscales qui sont restées élevées et les dépenses publiques qui ont diminuées.

The focus of this year’s Forecast evaluation report (FER) is the performance of our March 2023 Economic and fiscal outlook (EFO) forecast for the financial year 2023-24. The economy outturn data uses the ONS’s Quarterly National Accounts released on 28 June 2024. We have not taken on the Blue Book revisions partially released on 7 August 2024 and included in the 30 September 2024 Quarterly National Accounts, which arrived too late for consideration. The fiscal outturn data used is the ONS’s July 2024 Public Sector Finances publication for receipts, which include changes to tax revenues from HMRC’s Trust Statement alignment exercise, and the ONS’s June 2024 publication for spending.

During 2023-24, inflation fell rapidly as energy prices dropped, while GDP growth stagnated following its recovery from the pandemic. The labour force grew as net migration reached record levels, more than offsetting further falls in the overall participation rate. Total tax receipts remained at historically high levels as a share of GDP, with income tax and NICs receipts in particular remaining elevated due to high nominal earnings combined with frozen personal tax thresholds. Public spending fell as a share of GDP, as higher inflation eroded its real value despite modest additions to departmental spending to fund pay settlements, and higher spending on debt interest.

In this FER, in addition to examining the performance of our central forecast, we also explore how we presented the uncertainty around that forecast. While significantly different from our central forecast, outturns for energy prices, and interest rates were close to the alternative scenarios we explored for these key forecast determinants in the March 2023 EFO. In a volatile period for market expectations, outturns for gas prices proved to be closer to our downside scenario, while interest rates were closer to our upside. And the asymmetric impact of unexpectedly high inflation on the public finances, pushing up receipts more than spending, was consistent with the inflation scenarios included in successive EFOs.

Ce document montre qu’en Indonésie, le secteur des services joue un rôle moteur dans la dynamique économique, pourtant, des entraves réglementaires persistantes limitent considérablement sa contribution à un développement optimal. 

Services and services trade play an increasingly important role in Indonesia’s economy as they represent new sources of growth, job creation, and overall wellbeing. This study explores patterns, policies, and reform scenarios of Indonesian services trade building on the OECD’s expertise, data, and analysis. This analysis covers the role of services trade in the Indonesian economy at both the aggregate and granular sectoral levels; the regulatory environment for services trade, including domestic regulatory and policy developments, as well as the relevant services trade disciplines in Indonesia’s regional trade agreements; and potential reform packages that target services trade, with an assessment of their potential impact on the Indonesian economy. The stylized facts and findings in this study aim to inform the discussion on a coordinated policy action amongst Indonesian policy makers and stakeholders so as to maximise the contribution of services trade to the country’s economic development.

Ce rapport revient sur 15 ans de travaux sur la fiscalité et le développement à l’OCDE. Il retrace l’évolution du dialogue entre l’OCDE et les pays en développement concernant les travaux en matière de fiscalité, ainsi que leur inclusion à ces travaux, de 2009 à 2024.

Le rapport retrace l’évolution du dialogue entre l’OCDE et les pays en développement concernant les travaux en matière de fiscalité, ainsi que leur inclusion à ces travaux, de 2009 à 2024. À commencer par la restructuration du Forum mondial sur la transparence et l’échange de renseignements à des fins fiscales en 2009, en passant par les Actions BEPS, l’établissement du Cadre inclusif sur le BEPS et les négociations en vue d’une Solution reposant sur deux piliers pour résoudre les défis fiscaux soulevés par la numérisation de l’économie, il montre comment les initiatives de l’OCDE ont combiné l’élan de la coopération fiscale multilatérale avec l’attention accrue portée à la fiscalité dans le domaine du développement international, afin de développer un éventail d’outils, d’instruments et de forums avec une large participation des pays en développement.

Tout en accompagnant le passage au multilatéralisme en matière fiscale, l’OCDE s’est efforcée d’étendre la disponibilité des données sur la fiscalité, par exemple par le biais de la base de données mondiales des Statistiques mondiales des recettes publiques, et de soutenir une réflexion politique plus intégrée sur la fiscalité et le développement, par exemple sur le traitement fiscal de l’aide au développement. Parallèlement, les activités de l’OCDE en matière de renforcement des capacités n’ont cessé de croître, touchant désormais chaque année plus de 30 000 agents dans plus de 100 pays. Parmi ces initiatives, on peut notamment citer l’initiative innovante Inspecteurs des impôts sans frontières, menée conjointement par l’OCDE et le PNUD. Le rapport présente plusieurs études de cas mettant en évidence les impacts dans différents pays, ainsi que le large éventail de partenariats forgés par l’OCDE pour exploiter le potentiel de la fiscalité dans la promotion du développement durable.

Ce document montre qu’au Royaume-Uni, alors que le gouvernement s’apprête à présenter un budget historique après des années d’austérité, la chancelière fait face à un défi monumental : relancer la croissance sans compromettre les services publics ni alourdir la dette publique, dans un contexte de pression budgétaire sans précédent.

This month’s Budget – the first delivered by a Labour Chancellor in nearly 15 years and the first ever by a woman – will be historic, revealing the new Government’s priorities and setting its economic direction for the rest of this Parliament. But while it’s all change in Whitehall, the problems of the country as a whole remain much the same: growth since the financial crisis has been weaker than in any comparable period since the Great Depression. The Chancellor has issued a bold diagnosis and prescription: “growth is the challenge and investment is the solution.”

Ce document présente l’analyse des changements fiscaux discrétionnaires en Australie et montre que, bien que les réductions d’impôts stimulent temporairement la consommation et la croissance, leur impact sur l’économie reste transitoire et limité dans le temps, soulevant des questions sur l’efficacité à long terme de ces politiques.

This paper examines the impact of discretionary tax changes on economic activity in Australia. I use written records such as the Budget Report and Election Speeches to identify the revenue effect, timing and motivation of all major Commonwealth tax policy actions from 1983Q4 to 2018Q4. This approach allows me to isolate legislated tax changes that are not taken for reasons related to prospective economic conditions. I then examine the effects on output by treating the unanticipated exogenous tax changes as an instrument for tax revenue. The resulting estimates indicate that tax cuts are expansionary but much less persistent. The large effects stems in considerable part from a strong positive effect of tax cuts on consumption.

Ce court texte s’intéresse au manque de financement des écoles publiques selon les normes SRS par le gouvernement fédéral australien, l’empêchant ainsi de réaliser des gains liés à l’augmentation de l’emploi, à la valeur ajoutée dans le secteur scolaire, à l’amélioration de la productivité et des salaires des diplômés, ainsi qu’à la réduction des dépenses d’aide sociale.

International and Australian research has confirmed the substantial economic and fiscal benefits of well-funded and accessible public schools. Extrapolating international evidence, previous research from the Centre for Future Work estimated cumulating Australian GDP gains reaching $18-$25 billion per year after two decades, as a result of fully meeting SRS funding standards for public schools. Those gains are experienced via increased employment and value-added in the school sector; improved productivity and wage outcomes for school graduates; and reduced income support and social expenditures as a result of better overall education. Higher GDP would in turn generate revenue gains for government that exceed the expense of meeting SRS funding benchmarks in the first place.

The failure to fully fund public schools is clearly a case of false economy. The relatively small amounts of money ‘saved’ in the near term, are more than offset by long-run underperformance according to numerous indicators: school attainment and completion, productivity, GDP, and fiscal balances. The Commonwealth government is leaving money on the table, with its failure to fully meet SRS funding requirements.