DO TAX STRUCTURES AFFECT AGGREGATE ECONOMIC GROWTH? EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM A PANEL OF OECD COUNTRIES
Paragraph from document:
"A stronger reliance on income taxes seems to be associated with significantly lower levels of GDP per capita than the use of taxes on consumption and property. Within income taxes, those on corporate income seem to be associated with lower levels of GDP per capita than personal income taxes. In fact, corporate income taxes appear to be the least attractive choice from the perspective of raising GDP per capita. Comparing only consumption taxes and property taxes, both of which seem superior to income taxes, it is property taxes, and particularly recurrent taxes on immovable property, that appear to be associated with the highest levels of GDP per
capita. This ranking of tax instruments according to their “growth-friendliness†is robust to a number of sensitivity checks, including controlling for other possible determinants of growth or changes in the specification, and is confirmed throughout all regressions."
Of course property taxes are a real bane, as R.E. Wagner asserts. I surely wince at mine
Taxation
