Progressivity and redistributive effects of income taxes: evidence from India.

Concentration index India Inequality Tax progressivity

Journal

Empirical economics
ISSN: 0377-7332
Titre abrégé: Empir Econ
Pays: Austria
ID NLM: 101086175

Informations de publication

Date de publication:
2022
Historique:
received: 12 10 2020
accepted: 20 09 2021
pubmed: 2 11 2021
medline: 2 11 2021
entrez: 1 11 2021
Statut: ppublish

Résumé

We analyse the progressivity and redistributive effects of India's income tax system utilizing Income Tax Department data for 2011-18. By fitting Lorenz and tax concentration curves to these data, we find that despite exhibiting high levels of progressivity, the redistributive effects of income taxes remain modest amongst tax assessees and miniscule within the adult population. We also find that plugging the gap between statutory and actual average tax rates will do little to improve redistributive effects, and lowering income thresholds for top marginal tax rates offers greater redistributive and revenue potential than reducing exemption limits or increasing top marginal tax rates.

Identifiants

pubmed: 34720365
doi: 10.1007/s00181-021-02144-x
pii: 2144
pmc: PMC8536922
doi:

Types de publication

Journal Article

Langues

eng

Pagination

141-178

Informations de copyright

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Conflict of interestOn behalf of all authors, the corresponding author (Ranjan Ray) states that there is no conflict of interest.

Auteurs

Gaurav Datt (G)

Centre for Development Economics and Sustainability (CDES) and Department of Economics, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

Ranjan Ray (R)

Department of Economics, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

Christopher Teh (C)

Department of Economics, University of New South Wales, Kensington, Australia.

Classifications MeSH