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Tax‐and‐Transfer Tensions: Designing Direct Tax Structures
Author(s) -
Creedy John
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
australian economic review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.308
H-Index - 29
eISSN - 1467-8462
pISSN - 0004-9018
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8462.2010.00583.x
Subject(s) - unintended consequences , tax planning , public economics , affect (linguistics) , direct tax , value (mathematics) , economics , indirect tax , tax reform , political science , positive economics , law and economics , international taxation , sociology , computer science , law , communication , machine learning
Direct tax structures are regularly revised and debates over changes are heated. Taxes affect the behaviour of individuals and families in ways which are hard to predict, but which impose constraints on governments trying to achieve their objectives. Attempts to help one group of individuals often have unintended consequences on other groups. Views about the role of a tax system vary substantially but, in debates, the basic value judgements which influence policy recommendations are seldom made explicit. This article attempts to clarify the main tensions involved in tax planning and to explain why consensus is unlikely ever to be achieved.