The effects of business and payroll taxes on firms and workers: evidence from linked employer-employee data

虽然经合组织国家的公司税平均税率在20世纪80年代初接近50%，但到2015年已降至25%以下。此外，在不久的将来，通过削减商业和工资税来吸引外来投资的竞争可能会加剧。在英国，首相特蕾莎·梅表示，英国将拥有世界20个最大经济体中最低的企业税率，而在美国，唐纳德·特朗普总统正在寻求将公司税税率大幅降低至15%左右。主张降低营业税或工资税的人认为，这将导致企业利润的增加，从而影响企业的选址决策，从而影响就业水平。另一方面，反对者声称，这些税收要么转移到工人工资上，要么转移到消费者价格上，因此不会改变企业的选址决定。即使减税对就业有积极影响，政府也可能面临创造就业和税收收入之间的权衡；虽然商业税和工资税可以通过增加就业和工资间接增加税收，但它们直接减少了税收。除非间接的积极影响超过直接的负面影响，否则减税将导致税收收入和公共支出的减少。因此，全面了解对企业减税对就业、工资和税收的总体影响，对政府做出明智的政策选择至关重要。本项目旨在提高我们对企业为应对两种对企业征收的税种的变化而进行调整的理解：营业税（对利润征收）和工资税。我们将采用将企业和工人联系起来的罕见而详细的行政数据，并在很长一段时间内跟踪这些数据，分析商业和工资税变化对企业调整的因果影响，包括劳动力需求（雇佣和解雇）、工资、投资、产品价格设定、企业进入和退出。此外，我们将研究工人是否会通过迁移来应对。基于对企业和工人反应的全面了解，我们将模拟企业和工资税变化对税收的总体影响，同时考虑直接和间接影响。除了使用异乎寻常的丰富的企业和工人纵向管理数据外，我们的分析的一个特别优势是提出的研究设计。我们利用了由国家级法规引起的政策变化，这些法规在当地劳动力市场上产生了不同程度的税收变化。这些变化与当地经济状况无关，因此我们的研究设计允许我们从混杂因素中分离出税收变化的因果影响。拟议研究的科学成果旨在发表在顶级学术期刊上，我们希望我们的贡献能够显著推动有关企业和工资税、企业行为和工人劳动力市场结果的学术辩论。此外，全面了解削减商业税和工资税对就业和税收的总体影响，对政府做出明智的政策选择至关重要。我们希望我们提出的研究结果对政府、商界、央行以及欧盟、经济合作与发展组织（OECD）、世界银行、国际货币基金组织（IMF）和非政府组织等国际机构具有直接的政策相关性。

While the average rate of corporation tax amongst OECD countries was close to 50 percent in the early 1980's, it had fallen to below 25 percent by 2015. Moreover, competition to attract inward investment through cuts in business and payroll taxes is likely to intensify in the near future. In the UK, Prime Minister Theresa May has suggested that Britain is to have the lowest corporate tax rate among the world's 20 largest economies, and in the US, President Donald Trump is seeking a dramatic reduction in the rate of corporation tax to around 15 percent. Advocates of a reduction in business or payroll taxes argue that it will lead to an increase in firm profits and thereby affect firms' location decisions and hence employment levels. Opponents, on the other hand, claim that such taxes are shifted either onto workers' wages or consumer prices, and hence will not alter firms' location decisions. Even if tax reductions have a positive effect on employment, governments might face a trade-off between job creation and tax revenues; while business and payroll taxes may indirectly boost tax revenues through increased employment and wages, they directly reduce tax revenues. Unless the indirect positive effects dominate the direct negative effects, tax reductions will result in a decrease in tax revenues and public spending. Therefore, a thorough understanding of the overall effects on employment, wages and tax revenues of cutting taxes levied on businesses is crucial for governments to make informed policy choices. This project aims to improve our understanding of firms' adjustments in response to changes in two types of taxes levied on firms: business taxes (levied on profits) and payroll taxes. Employing rare and detailed administrative data linking firms and workers and following them over a prolonged period of time, we will analyse the causal effects of changes in business and payroll taxes on firm adjustments, including the demand for labour (hiring and firing), wages, investments, product price setting, firm entry and exit. Furthermore, we will look at whether workers respond by migrating. Based on our thorough understanding of the responses of firms and workers, we will simulate the overall effects of business and payroll tax changes on tax revenues, taking into account both the direct and indirect effects.A particular strength of our analysis, besides using unusually rich longitudinal administrative data on firms and workers, is the proposed research designs. We exploit policy changes induced by national-level regulations that generated tax changes of different magnitudes across local labour markets. These changes were unrelated to local economic conditions, and our research designs hence allow us to separate out the causal effects of tax changes from confounding factors.The scientific output of the proposed research is aimed at publication in top academic journals, and we expect our contributions to significantly advance the academic debate on business and payroll taxation, firm behaviour and labour market outcomes of workers. Moreover, a thorough understanding of the overall effects on employment and tax revenues of cutting business and payroll taxes is crucial for governments to make informed policy choices. We expect the results from our proposed research to have direct policy relevance to governments, the business community as well as to central banks, and international institutions such as the EU, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and NGO's.