Who Wants the Flat Tax? Individual and contextual determinants of tax policy preferences in postsocialist

Transcription

1 Who Wants the Flat Tax? Individual and contextual determinants of tax policy preferences in postsocialist Eastern Europe 1

2 Structure of the presentation Motivation of the research Research question Hypotheses Methods Results Discussion Questions / Remarks 2

3 Motivation Ample literature on the spread of flat personal income taxation across the CEECs (Appel 2011, Appel and Orenstein 2013, Beblavý 2011) Some literature on attitudes towards taxation (Steinmo 1996, Edlund 1999; 2003) But no research on tax attitudes in the CEECs 3

4 Research question What cleavages exist in attitudes towards taxation in the CEECs? Past research from Western Europe Past research on welfare attitudes in the CEECs Is there a positive policy feedback for the flat tax? Reasons both for positive and negative policy feedback 4

5 Hypotheses Individual level: H1: The older an individual is, the higher is her support for redistributive tax policies. H2: Higher educational attainment leads to decreasing preferences for redistributive taxes. H3: The greater the satisfaction with current household income, the lower is the support for redistributive taxes. H4: Individuals belonging to the working class are more likely to oppose nonredistributive tax policies. Contextual: H5: Individuals in countries that introduced the flat tax will be more likely to prefer the flat tax over other tax policies. H6: In countries that implemented the flat tax, income related cleavage in attitudes towards the flat tax will be smaller than in countries that did not implement the flat tax. H7: In those countries that implemented the flat tax, the age cleavage in attitudes towards the flat tax will be larger than in countries that did not implement the flat tax. 5

6 Methods Multilevel binomial/multinomial logistic regression The impact of individual level variables is studied using multinomial multilevel models The impact of contextual variables is studied using binomial multilevel models Predicted probabilities 6

7 Model specification Response variable: What tax policy most preferred? Flat tax vs. other policies Explanatory variables Individual level: Gender Age Education (lower secondary as baseline) Perceived household income adequacy Class (working class as baseline) Public sector employment Country level: Flat PIT (and interaction terms with Age and Income) 7

8 ESS4 Sample Flat tax in sample year: BG, CZ, EE, LT, LV, RO RU, SK, UA (9) Progressive taxation in sample year: CRO, HU, PL, SLO (4) 8

9 Results (i) 9

10 Results individual level predictors (i) 10

11 Results individual level predictors(ii) 11

12 Results the contextual level (i) 12

13 Results the contextual level (ii) 13

14 Results the contextual level (iii) 14

15 Results summary Age and income matter greatly Very little evidence for a positive policyfeedback In polities that already introduced the flat tax, cleavages based on ideology (e.g. age) are reinforced, while the income cleavage becomes smaller 15

16 Thank you for your attention! What are your questions / remarks? 16

17 References Appel, Hilary Tax Politics in Eastern Europe: Globalization, Regional Integration, and the Democratic Compromise. University of Michigan Press. Appel, Hilary, and Mitchell A. Orenstein Ideas Versus Resources Explaining the Flat Tax and Pension Privatization Revolutions in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. Comparative Political Studies 46 (2): doi: / Beblavý, Miroslav Why has the crisis been bad for private pensions, but good for the flat tax? The sustainability of neoliberal reforms in the new EU member states. CEPS Working Paper. df. Steinmo, Sven Taxation and Democracy: Swedish, British and American Approaches to Financing the Modern State. New Haven: Yale University Press. Edlund, Jonas Trust in Government and Welfare Regimes: Attitudes to Redistribution and Financial Cheating in the USA and Norway. European Journal of Political Research 35 (3): doi: /a: Attitudes Towards Taxation: Ignorant and Incoherent? Scandinavian Political Studies 26 (2): doi: /