The End of the Flat Tax Experiment in Slovakia

Michal Horvath, Matus Senaj, Zuzana Siebertova () and Norbert Svarda ()

Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, University of York

Abstract: The paper provides a quantitative assessment of the consequences of departing from a flat-tax system in the context of Slovakia. A behavioural microsimulation model of the labour supply is embedded into ageneral equilibrium framework with search and matching frictions. Some recently implemented marginal changes in the tax system leave aggregate labour market indicators as well as inequality measures virtually unaffected. We also examine hypothetical revenue-neutral reforms that would significantly increase the progressivity of the system through graduated marginal tax rates. We find that there are narrow limits to what policy makers could accomplish through such reforms in terms of employment and equality of income. Hence, an income tax reform should at best be seen as a complementary tool to other initiatives promoting such objectives. Moreover, we highlight an important trade-off: income tax reforms that promote employment may harm growth.

Keywords: flat tax; microsimulation; general equilibrium; search and matching; labour supply elasticity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 H24 H31 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma, nep-mac, nep-pbe and nep-pub
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.york.ac.uk/media/economics/documents/discussionpapers/2015/1512.pdf Main text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The End of the Flat Tax Experiment in Slovakia (2015)
Working Paper: The End of the Flat Tax Experiment in Slovakia (2015)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:yor:yorken:15/12

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, University of York Department of Economics and Related Studies, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, United Kingdom. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Paul Hodgson ().