H61 - National Budget; Budget SystemsNávrat zpět

In the literature, it is still thought that to combat budget deficits, the state struggles to adjust the relationship between government revenues and spending. Accordingly, the causality relationship between government revenues and spending is generally explained through four main hypotheses: tax-spending, spending-tax, fiscal synchronization and institutional separation hypotheses. In addition to the doubt that the first and the only step in the fight against the budget deficit is government revenues and government expenditures, there are various uncertainties in the studies on this subject in the literature. There is no consensus on the subject due to the differences in methodological methods in previous studies, the inability to determine the macroeconomic size used to represent the revenue variable and differences in the revenue composition of countries. This situation causes the findings obtained from empirical studies in this field to vary and misleading policy recommendations to be made. For this reason, in this study, the causality relationship between government revenues, tax and spending data in the G7 countries for the period 1965-2021 is examined within the framework of two different models, using both time domain and frequency domain causality tests. We draw attention to the effect of differences in methodological methods on the results obtained. The complex results obtained, in addition to shedding empirical light on the complexity arising from the methodological methods available in the literature, also show that it is not healthy to explain studies on combating budget deficits only with the causality relationship between government revenues and spending or tax and spending.

Personal income taxation in the Czech Republic has undergone significant changes in the last 20 years. Among main changes is replacing of deductions from the tax base with tax credits in 2006, as well as linking income tax and contributions on compulsory insurance in the form of so-called super-gross wage with the simultaneous introduction of a flat tax rate and introduction of maximum assessment bases for compulsory contributions in 2008. In this paper, we quantify the fiscal impacts of significant changes using macroeconomic and microeconomic approaches. We compare the results within each other, but also with the expected fiscal impact stated in the explanatory reports of the amending laws. The results show good consistency in estimates of the fiscal impact of tax and contribution reforms and confirm four fiscally significant reforms from 2000 to 2018. The expected negative and positive effects of changes in income tax presented in the explanatory reports are generally lower than in our calculations. Improving the quantification of fiscal impacts is essential for the adoption of an efficient and rational tax policy.

The non-existence of a link between reaching smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and the EU budget is resulting in the existence of sustainability gaps in the European Union. This research reveals that the introduction of the Common (Consolidated) Corporate Tax Base (hereinafter as C(C)CTB) could be an important contribution to close the existing sustainability gaps. To research the revenue potential of the C(C)CTB, a model based on a remittance system was designed. The system expects the replacement of the VAT-based own resource (resp. GNI-based own resource) through the transfer of a part of the corporate tax revenues from the C(C)CTB raised on the national level to the EU budget. The results of the research show that the C(C)CTB-based own resource would be able to fully replace the VAT-based own resource, with the only exception of Cyprus. However, the C(C)CTB-based own resource cannot be considered to be a sufficient resource to fully replace the GNI-base own resource.

This paper deals with the development of mandatory expenditure and its effect on the flexibility of fiscal policy in the Czech Republic. Fiscal flexibility is measured by the Steuerle-Roeper index of fiscal democracy, which expresses the proportion of budgetary revenue that remains after covering mandatory expenditure, i.e. the proportion of resources available for discretionary spending. The lower the value of the index, the lower the flexibility of fiscal resources. A negative value indicates that tax revenue is not sufficient to cover mandatory expenditure and the government has no resources available for discretionary spending. The analysis of Czech fiscal data from the period between 1995 and 2009 shows, that even though the share of mandatory expenditure increases, the flexibility of fiscal policy is still substantially better compared to Germany. The results of the comparison with the United States are ambiguous, depending on methodology. Some of the possible determinants of fiscal flexibility were tested by OLS regression. The analysis confirmed a negative relation of unemployment rate with the index of fiscal democracy. Panel regression also indicates a positive effect of GDP growth and a negative effect of the debt-to-GDP ratio. The effect of population ageing was not confirmed.

We survey theories of impacts of budgetary rules in the budget process, review empirical evidence and on the basis of comparative studies attempt to design the optimal shape of the Czech budgetary rules. The theoretical part focuses on conventional and non-intuitive effects of spending caps and spending targets under alternative electoral systems. The empirical part conveys a meta-analysis of five studies on fiscal governance in Central and Eastern European countries. The final part recommends changes in the Czech budget process.

This article deals with institutional measures proposed in the concept of the public budgets reform presented by the Czech Ministry of finance in December 2002 and it analyses its capability to improve the budget performance of the Czech Republic. First the performance budgeting and preconditions for its functioning are characterized. In the second part the multi-annual expenditure framework is discussed including analysis of its role in the budgetary process. A simple model shows that introduction of various steps in the budgetary process can alter the final budget. This model has proven that the multi-annual expenditure framework can limit the impact of the fiscal illusion. In the last part a new budget calendar that includes the new measures is proposed.