A new GLO Discussion Paper studies the distributional properties of VAT to reveal who bears higher payments, natives or migrants. There are no gaps in Germany, but in France and Spain.

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GLO Discussion Paper No. 723, 2020

Heterogeneity in effective VAT rates across native and migrant households in France, Germany and Spain – Download PDF
by Christl, Michael & Papini, Andrea & Tumino, Alberto

GLO Fellow Michael Christl

Author Abstract: This paper contributes to the literature on the distributional properties of VAT analysing who bears higher VAT payments between native and migrant household in France, Germany and Spain. The question is of interest both from a distributional and fiscal perspective, fitting the ongoing debate of the net fiscal impact of immigration. Using data from the 2010 EU HBS and a simple VAT calculator we show the existence of gaps in effective VAT rates between native and migrant households in France and in Spain, while no significant gap is observed in Germany. Our results also confirm the existing evidence on the regressivity of VAT with respect to income. These findings suggest that the fairness consequences of VAT reforms should be carefully assessed and advocate for the importance of considering indirect taxation when assessing the fiscal cost of migration.

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GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

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