J38 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs: Public PolicyReturn

The aim of the article is to answer the question whether the tax benefits that can be obtained by the self-employed in Poland influence the decision to start their own business. In the study, the EUROMOD microsimulation model is used to determine tax benefits from self-employment. The estimated tax benefits are then used in a probit regression to explain the probability of self-employment. The survey is carried out for both original EU-SILC data and adjusted data, assuming that the income reported by the self-employed is underreported. The results of the survey based on the original data indicate that taxpayers make irrational decisions about taking up self-employment. This is because as the benefits of self-employment increase, the probability of self-employment decreases. After ad-justing the data on self-employed income with the underreported income, the results of the analysis lead to the opposite conclusion.

The paper assesses the characteristics of tax wedge, employment and unemployment rate in the EU and by using linear regression analysis with panel-corrected standard errors on the sample of twenty-seven EU Member States over 1999-2008 period analyzes whether the tax wedge affects the employment growth. The empirical estimates have shown that, with regard to employment and unemployment rate, the EU Member States can be classified into two groups. The first group is characterized with high tax wedge, low employment and high unemployment rate, whereas the second group has the alternative characteristics. The negative tax wedge-employment relation was confirmed in the panel regression analysis, showing that an increase in tax wedge for one percentage point decreases the employment growth in the EU-27 by around 0.04 percentage points, ceteris paribus. The empirical estimates suggest that the EU-27 should continue with the trend of reducing tax wedge, as this would increase employment growth and employment rate and decrease unemployment, especially in Member States with high tax wedge.