V. K. Zakharov, E. I. Golikova The Relationship between the Welfare of the Country and the Progressive Personal Income Tax Does Exist

Abstract: The article investigates the relationship between the welfare of the country and the progressive scale of personal income tax. It identifies the factors impacting on the welfare and prosperity of the country. The authors performed factor analysis of forty (40) randomly selected countries and studied how such factors as gross domestic product per capita, average monthly salary, Gini coefficient, national debt, share of gold in international reserve assets influenced the welfare and prosperity of the country. The researchers determined the strength of functional dependence of the welfare of the country on income tax progressivity and calculated correlation coefficients. Along with well-known initial indices of the welfare of countries used in the UN statistics, new initial indices of income tax progressivity have been introduced. On their basis new aggregated socio-economic interval indicators have been derived, namely, the multifactor indicators of the welfare of the country and multi-factor indicators of prosperity of the country. These aggregated indicators have been calculated for forty major world countries, particularly for those whose initial indicators are available. The analysis of countries distribution in terms of welfare and prosperity (for 2009–2012) shows that Russia and Brazil have similar values of these parameters. And almost in all distributions both countries are in the lowest decimal intervals of appropriate indicators (in the lower first and second parts). The study shows that there is a positive linear trend relationship between the welfare of the country and the progressive taxation scale of natural persons. Moreover, by calculating the sample correlation coefficients, the authors point out that linear trend dependence is largely linear functional one. The flat income tax, adopted in Russia, has its negative impact on the welfare of the country.

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