VAT Treatment of the Financial Services: Implications for the Real Economy
研究了金融服务免征增值税带来的三种扭曲，发现取消免税总能增加税收，但福利改善仅在低税率时出现，因为增值税拉弗曲线呈驼峰形。
Abstract Financial institutions are exempt from the value‐added tax (VAT) in most countries. We develop a general equilibrium model with endogenous firm entry and a banking sector to accommodate three key distortions related to exempt treatment: (i) self‐supply bias in the banking sector, (ii) under‐taxation of payment services, and (iii) input distortions in the business sector and tax cascading. We calibrate our model to the average of Germany, France, and the UK data. Our results show that repealing exempt treatment always increases tax revenues. However, welfare gains occur only at low VAT rates due to the hump‐shaped VAT Laffer curve.