IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ifs/ifsewp/19-31.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Principles and practice of taxing small business

Author

Listed:
  • Stuart Adam

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Institute for Fiscal Studies)

  • Helen Miller

    (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Institute for Fiscal Studies)

Abstract

The UK taxes business income at much lower rates than employment income. In this paper we describe the problems caused by that differentiation and assess the main arguments used to defend it. We summarise the Mirrlees Review’s proposals for radical reform that would align tax rates across legal forms while protecting incentives to save and invest. Finally, we consider the obstacles to implementing such a radical reform and suggest an approach to making progress in practice. This paper is a draft of a chapter to appear in G. Loutzenhiser and R. de la Feria (eds.), The Dynamics of Taxation: Essays in Honour of Judith Freedman, due to be published by Hart Publishing in Summer 2020.

Suggested Citation

  • Stuart Adam & Helen Miller, 2019. "Principles and practice of taxing small business," IFS Working Papers W19/31, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:19/31
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/WP201931-Principles-and-practice-of-taxing-small-business-1.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Judith Freedman & Emma Chamberlain, 1997. "Horizontal equity and the taxation of employed and self-employed workers," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 18(1), pages 87-118, February.
    2. Helen Miller & Thomas Pope & Kate Smith, 2024. "Intertemporal Income Shifting and the Taxation of Business Owner-Managers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(1), pages 184-201, January.
    3. (IFS), Institute for Fiscal Studies & Mirrlees, James (ed.), 2011. "Tax By Design: The Mirrlees Review," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199553747.
    4. Paul Johnson & Gareth Myles, 2011. "The Mirrlees Review," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 32(3), pages 319-329, September.
    5. Jonathan Cribb & Helen Miller & Thomas Pope & Jonathan Cribb, 2019. "Who are business owners and what are they doing?," Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) Discussion Papers ESCoE DP-2019-12, Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE).
    6. Stuart Adam & James Browne & David Phillips & Barra Roantree, 2021. "Frictions and taxpayer responses: evidence from bunching at personal tax thresholds," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(3), pages 612-653, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jack Blundell & Stephen Machin, 2020. "Self-employment in the Covid-19 crisis," CEP Covid-19 Analyses cepcovid-19-003, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    2. Blundell, Jack & Machin, Stephen, 2020. "Self-employment in the Covid-19 crisis: a CEP Covid-19 analysis," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 104550, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. European Commission, 2013. "Tax reforms in EU Member States - Tax policy challenges for economic growth and fiscal sustainability – 2013 Report," Taxation Papers 38, Directorate General Taxation and Customs Union, European Commission.
    2. Langenmayr, Dominika & Haufler, Andreas & Bauer, Christian J., 2015. "Should tax policy favor high- or low-productivity firms?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 18-34.
    3. Robin Boadway & Pierre Pestieau, 2018. "The Dubious Case for Annual Wealth Taxation," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 16(02), pages 03-07, August.
    4. José Mª Durán-Cabré & Alejandro Esteller-Moré, 2014. "Tax professionals' view of the Spanish tax system: efficiency, equity and tax planning," Working Papers 2014/5, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    5. Robin Boadway & Motohiro Sato & Jean-Francois Tremblay, 2015. "Cash-flow business taxation revisited: bankruptcy, risk aversion and asymmetric information," Working Papers 1531, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    6. Hilber, Christian A.L. & Lyytikäinen, Teemu, 2017. "Transfer taxes and household mobility: Distortion on the housing or labor market?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 57-73.
    7. Hilber, Christian A. L. & Lyytikainen, Teemu, 2012. "The effect of the UK stamp duty land tax on household mobility," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 58605, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Nils aus dem Moore, 2014. "Taxes and Corporate Financing Decisions – Evidence from the Belgian ACE Reform," Ruhr Economic Papers 0533, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    9. Konstantinos Angelopoulos & James R. Malley & Wei Jiang, 2011. "The distributional consequences of tax reforms under market distortions," Working Papers 2011_21, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    10. repec:ces:ifodic:v:16:y:2018:i:2:p:50000000002753 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. n.d., 2013. "Italy's corporate tax reforms and firm-specific tax rates in the period 1998-2012," STUDI ECONOMICI, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2013(111), pages 51-68.
    12. Stefanie Stantcheva, 2017. "Optimal Taxation and Human Capital Policies over the Life Cycle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(6), pages 1931-1990.
    13. Haufler, Andreas & Norbäck, Pehr-Johan & Persson, Lars, 2014. "Entrepreneurial innovations and taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 13-31.
    14. Xavier Ruiz del Portal, 2020. "Two reasons for not using commodity taxation in the presence of an optimal income tax," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 232(1), pages 9-28, March.
    15. Gregor Schwerhoff & Ottmar Edenhofer & Marc Fleurbaey, 2020. "Taxation Of Economic Rents," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(2), pages 398-423, April.
    16. Mihir A. Desai & Dhammika Dharmapala, 2015. "Interest Deductions in a Multijurisdictional World," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 68(3), pages 653-680, September.
    17. Michael Carlos Best & Henrik Jacobsen Jacobsen, 2013. "Optimal Income Taxation with Career Effects of Work Effort," Working Papers 2013-9, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    18. Haibara Takumi, 2017. "Indirect Tax Reform in Developing Countries: A Consumption-Neutral Approach," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-11, June.
    19. Eckerstorfer, Paul & Steiner, Viktor & Wakolbinger, Florian, 2013. "Steuerreformvorschläge in der Diskussion: Eine Mikrosimulationsanalyse der Aufkommens-, Beschäftigungs- und Verteilungswirkungen für Österreich," Discussion Papers 2013/17, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    20. Harju Jarkko, 2014. "Policy evaluation methods in tax research – new evidence and interpretations," Nordic Tax Journal, Sciendo, vol. 2014(1), pages 76-92, May.
    21. Helen Miller & Thomas Pope & Kate Smith, 2024. "Intertemporal Income Shifting and the Taxation of Business Owner-Managers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(1), pages 184-201, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tax; small business; self-employment; tax-motivated incorporation; entrepreneurship;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:19/31. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emma Hyman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifsssuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.