Measuring Tax Efficiency: A Tax Optimality Index

Pascalis Raimondos () and Alan Woodland

No 04-08, EPRU Working Paper Series from Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper introduces an index of tax optimality that measures the distance of some current tax structure from the optimal tax structure in the presence of public goods. In doing so, we derive a [0,1] number that reveals immediately how far the current tax configuration is from the optimal one and, thereby, the degree of efficiency of a tax system. We call this number the Tax Optimality Index. We show how the basic method can be altered in order to derive a revenue equivalent uniform tax, which measures the size of the public sector. A numerical example is used to illustrate the method developed.

Keywords: tax optimality index; excess burden; distance function (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H21 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2004-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pbe and nep-pub
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Related works:
Journal Article: Measuring tax efficiency: A tax optimality index (2006)
Working Paper: Measuring Tax Efficiency: A Tax Optimality Index (2004)
Working Paper: Measuring Tax Efficiency: A Tax Optimality Index (2004)
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