The Optimal Tax Structure from GDP-growth Perspective

Abstract

The tax multiplier in macroeconomics assumes a negative relationship between the volume of tax revenue in a country and its GDP. However, it may also be relevant to GDP growth whether the same volume of tax burden is levied in a different structure. Can the fiscal government stimulate the GDP growth by restructuring the tax revenues? The following study analyses the linkage between GDP growth rate and the structure of tax revenues. A database contains data from 25 EU countries which are open economies in the European single market. The period starts in 1996 and lasts until 2018. The Eurostat classification is used for tax types. Dynamic GMM tests are applied for GDP equations based on expenditure and output approach and extended with taxation category determinants. The conclusions are that tax structure based on consumer taxes on production and income tax can support the economic growth, meanwhile higher weight of social contribution is a destructive factor for income expansion. The policy recommendation is to reweight the tax structure toward indirect taxes from direct taxes if economic growth is a preference in the tax system in a trade-oriented open economy.  Novelty of the research: Application of Arellano-Bond version of Dynamic GMM test, comparable results for Solow-Swan and augmented Cobb-Douglas approaches, the composition of database, the falsification and verification of statements of the existing literature.