Do healthcare tax credits help poor healthy individuals on low incomes?

Cinzia Di Novi, Anna Marenzi and Dino Rizzi

No 2016:16, Working Papers from Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari"

Abstract: In several countries, personal income tax permits tax credits for out-of-pocket healthcare expenditures. Tax credits produce two effects on taxpayers' disposable income. On the one hand, they benefit taxpayers at all income levels by reducing their net tax liability; on the other hand, they modify the price of out-of-pocket expenditure and, to the extent that consumer demand is price elastic, they may influence the amount of eligible healthcare expenditure for which taxpayers may claim a credit. These two effects influence, in turn, income redistribution and may affect taxpayers' health status and therefore income-related inequality in health. Redistributive consequences of tax credits have been widely investigated; however, little is known about the ability of tax credits to ensure a more equitable distribution of healthcare expenditure and, consequently, to alleviate health inequality. In this paper, we study the potential effects that tax credits for health expenses may have on health-related inequality with reference to the Italian institutional setting. The analysis is performed using a tax-benefit microsimulation model which reproduces the personal income tax and incorporates taxpayers' behavioural responses to changes in tax credit rate. Our results suggest that a healthcare tax credit design that does not rely on income, like the one implemented in the Italian personal income tax, is not effective in improving equity in health and tends to favour the richest part of the population.

Keywords: personal income tax; health-related tax credit; health inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H24 I10 I14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-ger, nep-hea, nep-pbe and nep-pub
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Related works:
Journal Article: Do healthcare tax credits help poor-health individuals on low incomes? (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ven:wpaper:2016:16

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