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State and local taxation

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Abstract

State and local taxation comprises those taxes that are collected at the sub-federal government levels in order to finance state and local public services, assigning discretion in the determination of rates and bases of these taxes to sub-federal governments. Consider a nation with different layers of government that are only serving administrative purposes. Each government level only distributes the public services to and collects the taxes from that nation’s citizens upon which they agreed at the national level. In such a country, no state or local taxation is necessary since the level of public goods and services is uniformly decided upon for the whole country. This leaves citizens in some local jurisdictions, which prefer more public services than the national average, as much dissatisfied as citizens in local jurisdictions, which prefer less. It is possible to provide public services, the benefits of which are geographically limited and which are not national in scope, at different levels in different sub-federal jurisdictions. Enabling citizens to consume publicly provided goods and services at different levels according to their preferences makes everyone better off without making someone worse off. In order to let people, who want to consume more, pay a higher tax price for those state and local services, taxes must be differentiated accordingly between states and local jurisdictions. In such a world with a differentiated supply of publicly provided goods, each individual can reside in a jurisdiction where a certain level of public services is provided to adequate tax prices. The art of state and local taxation is the assignment of different kinds of taxes to government levels such that an invisible hand properly guides a nation in an ideal world to an optimal multi-unit fiscal system. This is not necessarily the case in the real world and some answers exist why fiscal systems are not optimal.

Suggested Citation

  • Lars P Feld & Friedrich Schneider, 2000. "State and local taxation," Economics working papers 2000-05, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    • Handle: RePEc:jku:econwp:2000_05
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Gilbert E. Metcalf, 1993. "Tax exporting, federal deductibility, and state tax structure," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(1), pages 109-126.
    2. Giancarlo Pola & George France & Rosella Levaggi (ed.), 1996. "Developments in Local Government Finance," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 799.
    3. Olson, Mancur, Jr, 1969. "The Principle of "Fiscal Equivalence": The Division of Responsibilities among Different Levels of Government," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(2), pages 479-487, May.
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    Cited by:

    1. Baskaran, Thushyanthan, 2011. "Fiscal decentralization, ideology, and the size of the public sector," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 485-506, September.
    2. Lars P. Feld & Jan Schnellenbach & Christoph A Schaltegger, 2004. "On Government Centralization and Fiscal Referendums: A Theoretical Model and Evidence from Switzerland," Marburg Working Papers on Economics 200419, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    3. Lars P. Feld, 2000. "Fiskalischer Wettbewerb und Einkommensumverteilung," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 1(2), pages 181-198, May.
    4. Margit Schratzenstaller-Altzinger, 2016. "Technik und Kriterien für eine Stärkung der Steuerautonomie der österreichischen Bundesländer," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 89(6), pages 411-422, June.
    5. Paolo Liberati, 2011. "‘‘Which Tax’’ or ‘‘Which Tax for What?’’: Tax Assignment in the Theory of Fiscal Federalism," Public Finance Review, , vol. 39(3), pages 365-392, May.
    6. Friedrich Schneider & Alexander F. Wagner, 2003. "Tradeable permits - Ten key design issues," Economics working papers 2003-04, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    7. Friedrich Schneider & Alexander F. Wagner & Mathias Dufour, 2003. "Satisfaction not guaranteed-Institutions and satisfaction with democracy in Western Europe," Economics working papers 2003-03, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    8. Friedrich Schneider & Kausik Chaudhuri & Sumana Chatterjee, 2003. "The Size and Development of the Indian Shadow Economy and a Comparison with other 18 Asian Countries: An Empirical Investigation," Economics working papers 2003-02, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.

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