Components of the budget

Governments acquire the resources to finance their expenditures through a number of different methods. In many cases, the most important of these by far is taxation. Governments, however, also have recourse to raising funds through the sale of their goods and services, and, because government budgets seldom balance, through borrowing. The subject of borrowing, because of the intricacies of deficit spending, is covered in a separate section of this article.

Most countries raise resources through a variety of taxes, including direct taxes on wage and property income, contributions to trust funds, and a variety of indirect taxes on goods, either at the final point of sale or on the inputs used to make them. A smaller amount of revenue is raised from taxes on property, on capital gains, and on capital transfers, particularly at death. Most countries have a separate corporate income tax.

The balance between these different taxes has varied considerably over time and between countries. In the United States, sales taxes are relatively unimportant, accruing mainly to state and local governments. Federal government revenue is principally derived from taxes on personal and corporate income; until the 1980s the corporate share was diminishing, but changes in tax law tended to increase it. This dominant reliance on income taxes in the United States is a post-World War II phenomenon; at the beginning of the 20th century about half of all tax revenue came from taxes on property and half from sales taxes. Income tax was introduced on a regular basis only in 1913.

The tradition in Europe is somewhat different, with indirect taxes being relatively more important. All the countries in the European Union impose a tax (at varying rates) on value added, charging tax on output from industry and rebating it on inputs. In the United Kingdom, value-added tax (VAT) raises about half as much as the personal income tax, and together excise duties and VAT raise about one-third of total tax revenue. U.K. corporation taxes on non-oil activities are relatively light, although oil revenues have become very important, despite fluctuations, contributing increasingly to all tax revenue.

Australia, New Zealand, and the Scandinavian countries all rely heavily on income and profits taxes, which account for about half of all revenue raised from taxation. In contrast, France, Greece, Portugal, and Spain raise only about one-fifth of their revenue from such taxes. Social security taxes are important throughout Europe, raising about 30 percent of all revenue in Austria, Belgium, France, Greece, and Italy and rather more in Germany and the Netherlands. The Scandinavian countries, Ireland, and the United Kingdom rely less on these taxes, which are not used at all in Australia and New Zealand. Japan, like the United States, raises about 30 percent of total tax revenue from social security taxes.

Payroll taxes are relatively unimportant, raising significant amounts only in Australia, Austria, France, Ireland, and Sweden but rarely exceeding 5 percent of total revenue. Property taxes rarely account for more than another 5 percent, with the United Kingdom being the exception in this case. Sales taxes, excise duties, and VAT account for nearly one-half of all revenue in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal, compared with less than one-fifth in Japan.

In deciding how to raise enough money to finance its expenditure program, a government faces a large number of different considerations. First, the tax system is complex, containing many different taxes, each often having a complex structure. Perhaps the major consideration is the effects on behaviour that particular tax rates will cause.

Income tax has a graduated structure whereby no tax is paid on the first segment of income and then each subsequent segment is taxed at a higher rate than the previous one. In the United Kingdom most taxpayers pay tax at a uniform marginal rate, while other countries have more steeply rising rate schedules. Higher marginal tax rates make work less rewarding, which tends to reduce work effort. High marginal rates, however, may have less impact in some areas than others, a factor that needs to be considered when deciding who should bear the tax burden. Such considerations presumably have influenced the trend in many countries to tax the wealthiest groups.

Whatever the structure of the tax, the general proposition that increasing tax rates will reduce work effort usually holds; and this, in turn, tends to reduce tax revenue again. A vigorous debate has persisted over the “Laffer curve,” which postulates that at some level of tax the disincentive effects will be so great as to mean that an increase in tax rates actually reduces revenue. This idea has been influential in leading governments to attempt to curtail the share of public expenditure in national income. The administration of Ronald W. Reagan in the United States cut taxes in 1981 in the hope of increasing revenue by stimulating the economy, and, while this succeeded to some extent, expenditures grew even more, causing a substantial increase in the budget deficit.

Tax rates affect the pattern and level of consumption. Excise duties, value-added tax, and sales taxes all change the relative prices of goods and the attractiveness of consumption relative to saving. Once again, an increase in tax rates will generate responses that tend to cause a reduction in revenue, and, again, governments must balance the strength of these effects when deciding on which rates to increase. Other considerations, such as the protection of domestic industries, also affect such decisions.

Tax rates also affect commercial decisions, and the balance between individual and corporate taxes must reflect this. Accordingly, many countries have sought to attract new manufacturing industry with tax concessions. Finally, as rates rise, taxpayers seek more ways to avoid taxes. They employ tax advisers to find more tax-efficient routes, which, in particular, can involve a search for capital rather than income-yielding assets and the movement of activities overseas to less heavily taxed countries.