Tax Passing
Tax shifting (or passing on ) in finance and economics is the permitted shifting of tax burdens from one economic entity to another.
General
In tax law there is the taxpayer who, as the tax debtor, has to pay taxes to the tax office ( Section 33 (1) AO). "Pay tax" which means that the taxpayer as a payer , the so-called tax payable bears, so his tax liability by payment must meet. A distinction must be made between this payment of the tax and the tax transfer and the payload of the tax destiny . For example, sales tax (or sales tax ) is paid by companies from the purchase price received (tax payment and payment burden are the responsibility of the company), but sales tax is part of the purchase price ( gross price ) that is paid by the consumer . Therefore the control transmission and the load are with the consumer. In this distinction between tax payment / tax transfer or payload / payload lies the shift, because tax transfer and payload are shifted from the company to the consumer. Tax is passed on by shifting the tax burden from the taxpayer to the taxpayer.
Direct and indirect taxes
Direct taxes are characterized by the fact that, according to the purpose of the law, the taxpayer should also be the taxpayer at the same time (e.g. income tax , corporation tax or withholding tax ). According to the will of the legislature, direct taxes should also be borne economically by the tax debtor; they are "carrying taxes". Indirect taxes , on the other hand, are designed by the law to ensure that the legally payer does not bear the tax economically, but should consider it in the price and thus shift the tax burden economically on to the consumer. This includes sales tax and all excise taxes . The case law understands the transferability as an essential feature of all consumption taxes. For the classification of the types of tax , it is irrelevant who actually bears the tax, but who should pay it according to the purpose of the law. In making the distinction, it does not depend on whether the transfer succeeds.
Macroeconomics
Whether and to what extent a tax shift succeeds depends on the price elasticity of the goods and services. The more inelastic the price, the more likely it will be passed on to the price. In the meantime, finance has shown that direct taxes can also be passed on, while indirect taxes are not always passed on. The transferability of direct taxes is even provided for by law, namely, for example, the transfer of property tax to the tenant ( Section 2 No. 1 BetrKV in conjunction with Section 556 (1) BGB ). The sales tax law, which has been in force since January 1968, leads to a complete shifting of indirect taxes to the consumer, because for the companies in the sales chain the sales tax has the character of a transitory item because of the input tax deduction .
The financing function of taxes is met by both direct and indirect taxes, because as government revenue to finance the public expenditure serve. An allocative steering function occurs more in the case of indirect taxes because, for example, as alcohol taxes or tobacco taxes, they influence the consumption of these goods in terms of health policy or, as mineral oil taxes, they have environmental significance.
economic aspects
In today's economy, transfer is not only understood to mean the transfer of tax burdens, but also the transfer of types of costs ( personnel costs , material costs ) from companies to third parties, although the company transferring them would have to remain the cost or burden bearer. If, for example, wage costs rise faster than labor productivity , the companies concerned can try to pass on (pass on) this cost increase to the buyer by increasing prices. This works, though other companies ( competitors ) uniformly behave, there is an increase in product prices and thus to wage cost inflation ( English dare push inflation ). If this does not succeed (for example because the competition does not raise prices or if the incoming orders are poor ), the profit margin of the company falls .
Certain corporate risks can be transferred to third parties as part of the risk transfer.
Delimitations
The finance differentiates the pass-through ( English shifting) of the support ( English impact ) and the control incidence ( English incidence ). The tax is imposed or imposed on the tax debtor, because it is formally levied on him, although he is not supposed to bear it economically as a result. Furthermore, a distinction is made between forward or forward shift and backward shift . Passing on is the passing on of the tax from the seller to the consumer by means of a price increase (the actual passing on), i.e. when an entrepreneur raises his sales prices following a tax increase; on the other hand , if the tax debtor offsets the tax burden by lowering his purchase prices , there is a shift. From Querwälzung is used when a company is not up is in response to the increase of a special freight control the price of the taxed product, but that of another product.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Walter Müller, VAT reform , 1963, p. 25
- ↑ Business publishing house Dr. Th. Gabler, Gabler Wirtschafts Lexikon , Volume 6, 1984, Sp. 1683 f.
- ↑ Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden (ed.), Compact Lexicon Public Finance , 2013, p. 36
- ↑ BVerfGE 31, 8 , 20
- ↑ BVerfGE 14, 76 , 96
- ↑ Sarah A. König, Type-defining characteristics of consumption and expense taxes , 2016, p. 19
- ↑ Rainer Wernsmann, Behavioral Control in a Rational Tax System , 2005, p. 57
- ↑ BVerfGE 14, 76, 96
- ↑ Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden (ed.), Compact Lexicon Public Finance , 2013, p. 109
- ↑ Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden (ed.), Compact Lexicon Public Finance , 2013, p. 201
- ↑ Dieter Cansier / Stefan Bayer, Introduction to Public Finance , 2003, p. 20
- ↑ Jürgen Pätzold / Daniel Baade, Stabilisierungspolitik , 2012, p. 75
- ↑ Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman, The Doctrine of Tax Passing and Tax Effects , 1927, pp. 1 f.
- ↑ Sarah A. König, Type-defining characteristics of consumption and expense taxes , 2016, p. 16
- ^ Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman, The Doctrine of Tax Passing and Tax Effects , 1927, p. 3
