Qual è il problema dei sistemi fiscali contemporanei? Basterebbero queste citazioni per capirlo…
… “The tax code has become near incomprehensible except to specialists”Daniel Patrick Moynihan Chairman, Senate Finance Committee, August 11, 1994“I would repeal the entire Internal Revenue Code and start over”Shirley Peterson Former Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service, August 3, 1994“Tax laws are so complex that mechanical ruleshave caused some lawyers to lose sight of the fact that their stock-in-trade as lawyers should be sound judgment, not an ability to recall an obscure paragraph and manipulate its language to derive unintended tax benefits”Margaret Milner Richardson Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service, August 10, 1994“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow”Alexander Hamilton or James Madison, The Federalist, …
La flat tax puo’ risolverli?
Forse, ma prima bisogna capire cosa sia una flat tax. Per alcuni si tratta di un sistema ad aliquota unica. No, è molto di più.
Il miglior modo di capirlo consiste nel consultare i suoi inventori, Robert E. Hall e Alvin Rabushka, magari attraverso il loro libro “The Flat Tax: Updated Revised Edition”.
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Oggi l’imposta sul reddito – ovvero l’architrave di tutti i sistemi fiscali – è un gran casino ovunque.
Non è efficiente.
Non è giusta.
Non è semplice.
Non è comprensibile e ci costa moltissimo amministrarla.
Costa moltissimo anche al contribuente costretto a calcoli complicati.
Si deve pagare un esercito di commercialisti per trovare soluzioni ad hoc. Poi si deve pagare un esercito di lobbisti per ottenere la leggina che ci esenti.
Chi ha una mezza idea di fare il buon cittadino ci rinuncia causa emicrania.
Il Presidente Scalfaro definì “lunare” un 740 che oggi – nel silenzio generale -ci appare semplicissimo…
… Jimmy Carter called the income tax “a disgrace to the human race.”…
E attenzione che il fisco può esasperare, lo insegna la storia. Uno subisce, subisce e poi…
… The Declaration of Independence was in large measure a bill of particulars against British taxation… in 1766… colonial leaders met to protest the British Stamp Tax… duties on paper…
Riassunto…
… One, the federal income tax is not simple. Two, the federal income tax is too costly. Three, the federal income tax is not fair…
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Qual è il dibattito oggi sulla flat tax?…
… Few critics of the flat tax defend the current system as fair… the debate about the merits ofa flat tax boils down to, Can it be fair?…
Si parla molto di equità.
Anticipo allora le tre tesi in merito all’equità della flat tax…
… This chapter makes three important points. First, the flat tax is fair on the basis of historical and commonsense notions of fairness. Second, the flat tax is fair based on who pays, especially when compared with the current U.S. federal income tax system. Third, the flat tax enjoys wide support from all sides of the political spectrum and the media…
Qual è il concetto più diffuso di equità?…
… To discriminate among equal classes of taxpayers is arbitrary, capricious, and generally regarded as wron…
Si parla comunemente di equità orizzontale.
Nemmeno Rawls – un campione della redistribuzione – obbietta su una tassa proporzionale…
… Economists use the term horizontal equity to mean that people under similar circumstances should bear equal tax burdens. As a general principle, a flat tax (also called a uniform, proportional, or single-rate tax) satisfies this norm. Even Harvard philosopher John Rawls, a fervent advocate of redistribution, concludes in his controversial book A Theory of justice that “a proportional expenditure tax may be … the best tax scheme.”…
Un sistema del genere tutela i poveri istituendo una no tax area…
… In practice, the horizontal equity norm invariably includes a provision for exempting low-income families from income taxes. Today, this provision takes the form of a combination of personal exemptions and the standard deduction…
Il sistema progressivo di tassazione invece si premura di tutelare anche i ricchi (rispetto ai ricchissimi, per esempio)…
… the imposition of steeply graduated tax rates was seen by many as a desirable way to achieve greater equality… Those in charge of this intellectual and political transformation found a new norm of vertical equity with which to replace the former, established norm of horizontal equity. They called this new norm the ability to pay…
Si tratta di una tradizione recente che prende il nome di equità verticale.
L’inconveniente che genera è chiaro: in democrazia mette alcuni gruppi di cittadini nelle mani di altri. Ovvero, io posso votare e aumentare solo la tua aliquota senza il tuo accordo. Si chiama tirannia della maggioranza.
Ad ogni modo, qualsiasi siano le intenzioni di chi propone l’equità verticale, il sistema non funziona in pratica…
… Vertical equity does not fare well in practice. Despite attempts to equalize after-tax incomes through steeply graduated tax rates, one Congress after another has riddled the tax code with hundreds of loopholes that permit some millionaires to pay no income taxes whatsoever and some high earners to pay low taxes. Good examples are tax-free municipal bonds and charitable contributions. Other loopholes permit the wealthy to exploit tax shelters that reduce large incomes to modest levels of taxable income…
John Witte…
… “there is no evidence that the income tax significantly redistributes income.”…
Con i sistemi progressivi è sempre la stessa storia che si ripete…
… every time tax rates are increased, Congress, in response to political pressures from organized interest groups, inserts new deductions and loopholes into the tax code to offset the effects of higher rates…
Tasse alte e concentrate su chi puo’ eludere ed evadere producono evasione ed elusione.
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Paradosso: aliquote progressive realizzano un sistema fiscale regressivo.
Non è teoria (da quanto appena detto il modello teorico che spiega il paradosso è facile da costruire), è evidenza storica.
Gli USA, nel XX secolo hanno abbassato le tasse in modo corposo tre volte…
… Three episodes of major changes in tax legislation in the 1920s, 1960s, and 1980s…
E sempre il sistema fiscale è diventato più progressivo (i ricchi pagano molto più dei poveri.
Primo caso: Andrew Mellon negli anni venti…
… a range of 6 to 77 percent…. under the ax of Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, who cut the top rate to 25 percent… Professors James Gwartney and Richard Stroup have analyzed tax receipts by income categories before and after the Mellon reductions…
Esito…
… After the reductions, the highest income category paid substantially more in absolute tax dollars and nearly doubled its share of total federal revenues. The lowest income category paid almost 80 percent less in absolute dollars, and its share of the total burden fell from 23 to 5 percent (see table 2.1)…
Conclusione…
… To repeat, cutting the top rate from 77 percent to 25 percent produced a more progressive tax system…
Come può essere?…
… One big reason is that formerly high-bracket taxpayers shifted assets from tax-free bonds into productive outlets…
Secondo caso: John Kennedy negli anni sessanta…
… Kennedy’s legislation reduced all brackets, from a range of 20 to 91 percent to 14 to 70 percent….
Risultato…
… Using income data reported by the IRS, Lawrence B. Lindsay compared taxes paid by high-income taxpayers before and after the 1964 rate reductions. In 1965, the first year for which the new rates applied, high-income taxpayers declared more taxable income and paid more in taxes than they would have paid under the old law. The trend was especially pronounced in the highest bracket (see table 2.2)…
Come mai? Tre ragioni.
Prima…
… the highest brackets shifted money from consumption or tax-sheltered investments into more productive, taxable investments;…
Seconda…
… taxpayers became more honest as evasion became less rewarding…
Terza…
… some taxpayers, rewarded by higher after-tax returns, worked harder…
Terzo caso: Ronald Reagan negli anni ottanta…
… Between 1981 and 1986, marginal tax rates were reduced across the board,… The Tax Reform Act of 1986 further reduced the top rate of 50 percent to 28 percent…
Esito…
… The share of total individual income taxes paid by the top 1 percent (by adjusted gross income category) rose from 17.9 percent in 1981 to 25.6 percent in 1990 (see table 2.3). The share paid by the top 5 percent rose from 35.4 percent to 44 percent and by the top 10 percent from 48.2 percent to 55.7 percent. The bottom 50 percent reduced its contribution from 7.4 percent in 1981 to 5.7 percent in 1990…
Ragioni…
… when tax rates fall, upper-income households shift assets out of instruments that generate tax-exempt income, or from schemes that are designed to shelter income, into taxable economic activity…
Ma a conferma c’è anche il caso inverso: più progressività nelle aliquote, meno progressività nel sistema di raccolta fiscale…
… The 1990 budget accord raised the top personal tax rate from 28 percent to 31 percent. This marginal tax rate increase was part of President George Bush’s… The IRS statistics for 1991, the first taxable year following the 1990 tax rate increase, reveal that the superrich, the top 1 percent of income distribution, and the ordinary rich, the top 5 percent, both paid smaller shares of total income taxes in 1991 than in 1990….
Non c’è nulla di straordinario in tutto questo, sono le leggi economiche della domanda e dell’offerta: se tu punisci il lavoro avrai meno lavoro e meno ricchezza.
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D’altronde, oggi gli USA sono un sistema a bassa tassazione sui ricchi ma anche il sistema fiscale dove i ricchi contribuiscono di più alle spese.
Praticamente metà degli americani non paga tasse sul reddito. E tre quarti dei nuclei familiari arriva, al massimo, ad un’aliquota marginale del 15%. In questo sistema l’84% dei $ 1.4 trilioni di entrate dalla tassa sul reddito viene pagato solo dal 20% più ricco, gente che guadagna almeno $ 10,000 al mese.
Negli Stati Uniti, già oggi, l‘80% della popolazione è free rider sulla groppa del 20% più ricco.
I ricchi pagano la bolletta e la maggioranza decide come spendere.
Il sogno socialista – tassare solo i ricchi – si sta realizzando nella culla del capitalismo.
Come si è arrivati a far pagare SOLO i ricchi? Semplice, tassando MENO i ricchi.
In termini relativi la famiglia mediana ha visto le imposte federali sul reddito praticamente scomparire, mentre la famiglia ricca le ha viste quasi dimezzarsi.
E il tutto a parità di gettito (anzi, al gettito aumentato!).
Perché questa manna? Perché i ricchi diventano sempre più ricchi (senza che i poveri divengano più poveri!) e la cosa conviene a tutti.
Ebbene, la falt tax spinge ulteriormente in questa direzione. E’ una direzione che piace a molti, tanto è vero che il sostegno alla flat tax è bipartisan.
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Vediamo allora meglio il fisco flat tax.
Che aliquota occorre fissare per avere il gettito attuale?
… Because its base is broad, the astonishingly low 19 percent tax rate raises the same revenue as does the current tax system…
Nel sistema flat i poveri non pagano (no tax area).
La flat tax non colpisce i redditi ma i consumi.
La tassazione avviene alla fonte…
… Our system rests on a basic administrative principle: income should be taxed exactly once as close as possible to its source…
La tassazione alla fonte è possibile grazie all’aliquota unica e limita molta elusione/evasione…
… Whenever different forms of income are taxed at different rates or different taxpayers face different rates, the public figures out how to take advantage of the differential. The basic trick is to take deductions at the highest available rate and to report income at the lowest rate….
Il sistema flat è progressivo…
… A flat rate, applied to all income above a generous personal allowance, provides progressivity without creating important differences in tax rates…
Anche per questo è preferibile all’IVA.
E anche alla progressività tradizionale che scatena l’elusione e non consente di tassare alla fonte…
Le basse aliquote sui ricchi stimolano chi ha più opportunità di investimento…
La tassa piatta colpisce il consumo e supera il peggior difetto del fisco contemporaneo: la doppia tassazione dei risparmi…
… the current system puts substantial taxes on the earnings from savings. On that account, the economy is biased toward too little saving and too much consumption…
Il risparmio è il motore dell’economia capitalista: più risparmio, più capitale, più produttività, più ricchezza. Penalizzarlo ha effetti mortiferi.
Certo che chi guarda i TG stupisce: “ma non sono i consumi a trainare l’economia“. In effetti è una filastrocca ripetuta da politici (e commercianti). Ma anche l’eroinomane vorrebbe più eroina per tirare avanti. Forse dobbiamo pensare a qualcosa di diverso rispetto a “tirare avanti”.
Oggi il legislatore tampona i danni della doppia tassazione del risparmio concedendo agevolazioni spot a chi investe secondo certe regole bizantine. Il risultato della strategia? Un guazzabuglio dove si naviga a vista e prosperano solo furboni e ammanicati…
… … The government’s solution to the problem has been to pile one special investment or saving incentive on top of another, creating a complex and unworkable maze of regulations and tax forms. Existing incentives are appallingly uneven…
Nel sistema flat i redditi del risparmio (interessi, dividendi, capital gain, affitti ecc..) sono esenti. Punto.
Un sistema semplice che rende superflue le costose consulenze.
Un sistema semplice che rende più difficile l’evasione.
Un sistema semplice e trasparente che crea fiducia nel governo.
I redditi del sistema sono di due tipi: d’impresa e di lavoro dipendente. Entrambi sono tassati alla medesima aliquota.
Base imponibile reddito d’impresa…
… Total revenue from sales of goods and services less purchases of inputs from other firms less wages, salaries, and pensions paid to workers less purchases of plant and equipment…
Incassi previsti…
… These computations show that in 1993 the revenue from the corporate income tax, with a tax rate of 35 percent, was $118 billion. The revenue from our business tax at a rate of 19 percent would have been $362 billion, just over three times as much, even though the tax rate is not much more than half the current corporate rate…
I motivi di una messe tanto ricca sono tre.
Primo…
… more than half of business income is from noncorporate businesses-professional partnerships, proprietorships, and the like…
Secondo…
… our business tax does not permit the deduction of interest… the business tax puts a tax on fringe benefit…
La tassazione alla fonte fa la differenza, in effetti. Non è possibile sospendere la tassazione sugli utili prodotti, indipendentemente dalla loro distribuzione.
Il rovescio della medaglia sta nel fatto che il gettito proveniente dal lavoro dipendente sarà inferiore.
Molti elementi dell’attuale sistema spariranno…
… Many features of current taxes would disappear, including charitable deductions, mortgage interest deductions, capital gains taxes, dividend taxes, and interest taxes…
La tassazione delle imprese alla fonte fa la differenza…
… taxation of individual business income at the source is possible because we already know the tax rate of all of the owners of the business-it is the common flat rate paid by all taxpayers. If the tax system has graduated rates, taxation at the source becomes a problem… The business tax is a giant, comprehensive withholding tax on all types of income other than wages, salaries, and pensions…
Gli interessi passivi non saranno deducibili e gli interessi attivi saranno esenti.
I privati non avranno più deduzioni.
Non ci saranno capital gain, crediti d’imposta e tassazione dei dividenti e altre complicazioni.
La dichiarazione dei redditi avrà le dimensioni di una cartolina.
Novità importante: basta ammortamenti, l’investimento è deducibile interamente nell’anno di effettuazione e le perdite illimitatamente riportabili…
… We sweep away the whole complicated apparatus of depreciation deductions, but we replace it with something more favorable for capital formation, an immediate 100 percent first-year tax write-off of all investment spending…
C’è chi propone un rimborso a fronte delle perdite (imposta negativa) ma il rischio di comportamenti opportunistici è troppo elevato. Accontentiamoci del riporto illimitato e a interesse composto.
Anche questa misura è una panacea per gli investimenti.
Altra novità: basta con la truffa dei fringe benefit…
… The cost of fringes is deductible by businesses, but workers are not taxed on the value of the fringes…. As taxation has become heavier and heavier, fringes have become more and more important in the total package offered by employers… The explosion of fringes is strictly an artifact of taxation and thus an economically inefficient way to pay workers… Were the tax system neutral, with equal taxes on fringes and cash, workers would rather take their income in cash and make their own decisions about health and life insurance, parking, exercise facilities, and all the other things they now get from their employers without much choice….
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Oggi, il finanziamento a debito è privilegiato rispetto a quello con capitale proprio. Indeducibilità degli interessi, detraibilità totale degli investimenti e dividenti esenti da tassazione, cambieranno le carte in tavola…
… Our idea is to start over, throwing away all the present incentives and replacing them with a simple, uniform principle-treating the total amount of investment as an expense in the year it is made…
Oggi poi il risparmio, ovvero la fonte degli investimenti, è tassato due volte: quando si cumula e quando fruttifica…
… Under an income tax, people pay tax once when they earn and save and again when the savings earn a return…
Queste condizioni sono una spinta al consumismo.
Ecco come sparisce la doppia tassazione…
… consider the common stock of a corporation. The market value of the stock is the capitalization of its future earnings. Because the owners of the stock will receive their earnings after the corporation has paid the business tax, the market capitalizes after-tax earnings. A capital gain occurs when the market perceives that prospective after-tax earnings have risen. When the higher earnings materialize in the future, they will be correspondingly taxed. In a tax system like the current one, with both an income tax and a capital gains tax, there is double taxation. To achieve the goal of taxing all income exactly once, the best answer is to place an airtight tax on the income at the source. With taxation at the source, it is inappropriate and inefficient to tax capital gains that occur at the destination…
Affitti, capital gain, interessi, plusvalenze, dividendi e qualsiasi rendita saranno esentati.
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Un problema è costituito dalla tassazione di banche e assicurazioni: nei loro ricavi e nei loro costi interessi e servizi si intrecciano.
Per esempio: sui depositi pagano interessi bassi perché al netto del servizio. Ma quanto è servizio e quanto è interesse?
Come distinguere?
Poiché gli interessi attivi sono esenti o indeducibili la banca è incentivata a comportamenti opportunistici (ovvero a dichiarare che gran parte dei suoi ricavi sono interessi, oppure che gran parte dei costi non sono interessi).
Soluzione…
… The solution is to require that banks report the price of the services they provide to depositors… the difference between the market interest rate and the lower rate that the bank pays… For example, when the interest rate on Treasury bills is 5 percent and checking accounts are paying 2 percent, the price of the bundled services is the difference, 3 percent of the balance in the account. Line 1 on a bank’s Form 2 should include the valuation of all bundled services on this principle…
Altro problema: gli operatori all’estero…
… Should the U.S. government try to tax American-owned business operations in other countries?…
Oggi…
… Under the current tax system, foreign operations of U.S. companies are taxed in principle, but the taxpayer receives a credit against U.S. taxes for taxes paid to the country where the business operates… current tax system is based on a confused combination of taxing some income at the origin and some at the destination…
Domani tutto sarà tassato all’origine…
… Physical presence in the United States is the simple rule that determines whether a purchase or sale is included in taxable revenue or allowable cost…
Esempio…
… consider a firm that sends parts to Mexico for assembly and brings back the final product for sale in the United States. The value of the parts as they leave here would count as part of the revenue of the firm, and the value of the assembled product when it was returned would be an expense. The firm would not deduct the actual costs of its Mexican assembly plant…
A proposito di rapporti con l’estero, vale la pena di precisare qui come aliquote tanto basse siano estremamente valide nella concorrenza fiscale tra paesi…
… Choices about the international location of businesses and employment are influenced by differences in tax rates. The United States, with a low tax rate of 19 percent, would be much the most attractive location among major industrial nations from the point of view of taxation…
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Ripetiamo i tre vantaggi di un sistema flat…
… Improved incentives for work, entrepreneurial activity, and capital formation will substantially raise national output and the standard of living…
Partiamo dai vantaggi per il lavoro…
… The net effect of the flat tax, with marginal rates of 0 and 19 percent, would be to dramatically improve incentives for almost everyone who is economically active… some authors have written that married women face a special disincentive… Sheer hours of work make up one of the most important dimensions of productive effort and one that is known to be sensitive to incentives…
I più incentivati saranno coloro che si affacciano al mondo del lavoro col dubbio se entrare: giovani, donne, pensionati. Con la flat i dubbi spariscono.
Diventa naturale puntare sul lavoro piuttosto che sulla deducibilità delle spese.
E la famiglia?…
… It is true that work incentives for a woman with a well-paid husband are seriously eroded by high tax rates. But so are her husband’s incentives. What matters to both of them is how much of any extra dollar of earnings they will keep after taxes… always the same, no matter how their earnings are split between them….
Altro vantaggio: la formazione di capitale fresco…
… The most important structural bias of the existing system is the double taxation of business income earned in corporations and paid out to shareholders. Double taxation dramatically reduces the incentive to create new businesses in risky lines where debt financing is not available… The flat tax would eliminate the harmful twist in the current tax system…
Stime…
… Public finance economists Alan Auerbach and Laurence Kotlikoff estimate that using a flat-rate consumption tax in place of an income tax would raise the ratio of capital stock to GDP from 5.0 to 6.2. Other economists are less optimistic that correcting the double taxation of saving would provide the resources for this large an increase in investment. But all agree that there would be some favorable effect on capital formation…
Più capitale più produttività…
… Tax reform would improve the productivity of capital by directing investment to the most productive uses. Auerbach has demonstrated, in a paper published by the Brookings Institution, that the bias of the current tax system toward equipment and away from structures imposes a small but important burden on the economy. The flat tax would correct this bias. Auerbach estimates that the correction would be equivalent to a 3.2 percent increase in the capital stock. GNP would rise on this account by 0.8 percent…
Premiato poi l’imprenditore che rischia del suo: l’incentivo artificioso al finanziamento viene eliminato.
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Eppure i dubbi non mancano…
… Is it a giveaway to the rich? Will it destroy the housing market by ending mortgage deductions? Can charitable institutions survive without tax deductions for gifts? Can the flat tax end the federal deficit?…
Chi ci perde e chi ci guadagna con la flat?…
… The current personal and corporate taxes tax wages heavily and business income lightly. The flat tax would reverse…
Come detto prima, in una prospettiva dinamica tutti ci guadagnano.
In una prospettiva statica vincono ricchi e poveri con una classe media che, in alcuni casi, specie con la tassazione alla fonte dei redditi d’impresa e l’eliminazione delle deduzioni, è a rischio.
Difficile però isolare un gruppo di cittadini penalizzato inizialmente…
… We can’t tell if there are any income groups who would pay significantly higher taxes, including the wage taxes they would pay directly and the business taxes they would pay indirectly…
Ma i critici che lanciano l’allarme della classe media sbagliano o quantomeno esagerano…
… The critics are wrong because they fail to understand how unfair our current tax system is…. they fail to understand how unfair our current tax system is… Their calculations invariably take the adjusted gross incomes reported by taxpayers as if they were their true incomes… over half of all business income never shows… They do not consider the option of raising a suitable amount of revenue from business income… instead, they propose to continue the current practice of generating almost all revenue by taxing wages and salaries. By letting business income continue to go virtually untaxed…
Altri dubbi.
I tassi d’interesse si alzeranno? No, inizialmente si abbasseranno. Oggi si tollerano tassi alti solo perché sono deducibili.
Ma domani? L’economia che tira alza i tassi, è ovvio.
L‘edilizia deve tremare?…
… Everyone who hears about the flat tax, with no deductions for interest, worries about its effect on the housing market…
Difficile capire quale forza in campo prevarrà. Ce ne sono diverse e contrastanti…
… we freely concede that there is a significant issue here… As we stressed earlier, our tax reform will immediately lower interest rates… The total effect of reform will depend on the relative strengths of the contending forces-the value of the lost interest deduction against the value of lower interest…
Di certo ci saranno problemi di transizione…
… So far, we have looked at the way prospective buyers might calculate what value of house they can afford. These calculations are the proximate determinants of house prices. But they have no bearing on the situation of an existing homeowner who has no intention of selling or buying. To the homeowner, loss of the tax deduction would be pure grief. Our transition proposal takes care of the problem of existing mortgages without compromising the principles of the flat tax or diminishing its revenue…
E i contributi al terzo settore (ora non più deducibili)?
In generale vale il principio: “più ricchi più generosi in senso assoluto“…
… The immediate effect of tax reform may be a small decline in giving. Later, as the economy surges forward under the impetus of improved incentives for productive activity, giving will recover and likely exceed its current levels. … Tax reform will be a tremendous boon to the economic elite from the start… Major tax cuts in 1981 and 1986 cut the top marginal tax rate from 70 percent to 50 percent and then to 28 percent. As a result, major donors shifted from spending thirty-three-cent dollars to spending fifty-cent and then seventy-two-cent dollars for tax-deductible gifts….
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L’effetto generale: si penserà più a produrre e meno ad eludere il fisco…
… The most important change is that we would spend time thinking about producing goods and services and improving productivity instead of remaining obsessed with exploiting tax-advantaged opportunities…
