Determinants of Tax Capacity for a Territory (The Case of the Russian Federal Districts)

Abstract

In this article, the tax capacity of the territories in the Russian Federation was studied. The study was conducted based on the aggregation for eight federal districts, including data on 85 subjects of the Russian Federation from 2009–2018. To determine the factors that have the strongest impact on tax capacity at the subnational level, an econometric analysis of the panel data was performed using the Stata program. In the development of the model, tax share was used as the resulting indicator. The article analyzes the impact on tax share of 16 macroeconomic indicators that reflect the human and financial potential of taxpayers in a federal district, the investment attractiveness and innovative activity of the territory, as well as global financial and economic regulators. The hypothesis that due to significant differences in the socioeconomic development of territories, the determinants of tax capacity will differ by federal districts, was confirmed. However, it was proved that such differences are not related to the specific features of socioeconomic development inherent in the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. Among the selected factors in pooled regression, fixed effects, and random effects models, the level of employment of the population and the financial results of companies were considered the most significant. The significance of the level of employment of the population could be determined by a clear deficit in gross fixed capital accumulation against the background of a high degree of depreciation of fixed assets and the share of manual labor.

Keywords

• russian federal districts
• subnational budget
• tax capacity
• tax effort
• tax share