Tag: government revenue

Categories
Economics

[2601] A thought, or two, about federated and unitary states finance, and consolidated public sector finance

I have been doing some preparatory work for a report on the 2013 federal government budget. The budget will be tabled at the Parliament this Friday.

In the course of doing so, I have come to wonder if the comparison of budget deficit (as typically understood) across governments of the world is really fair. Specifically, I do not think it is fair to compare the fiscal balance of a federated state with that of an unitary state, especially if one is concerned with the health of the overall economy and not just the financial health of the government.

This suspicion came after I read the consolidated public sector account for Malaysia.

One reason for the suspicion is this: one way to measure the solvency of the government is to see if the government can finance its operating expenditure and pay all of its borrowings interest purely by its revenue. This is called the primary surplus/deficit or the primary balance.

The reason is that through this, the government can fulfill all financial claims against it without embarking on new investments that require further financing while providing essential services to citizens and others largely unimpeded. To put it in another way, for government finance to be sustainable, it should be able to purely finance its consumption through its revenue only, and not by borrowing further (this comes with the assumption the interest rate is above zero. If the rate is zero and below, well, borrow away).

Looking at the federal government, most of the times there were no problem. According to the latest Bank Negara Malaysia’s Monthly Statistical Bulletin, most quarters registered a surplus as far as the primary balance is concerned. On yearly basis, there have been surpluses since 1981 (the earliest data available in the bulletin) with the exception of 1987 and 1986.

But according to the consolidated account (the Treasury identified it as consolidated public sector account which includes the finances of the federal government, all state governments, various statutory bodies and all local governments), then there is a huge deficit to contend with. In fact, it is estimated that there was a RM35 billion primary deficit for the first half of 2012. In 2011, it was estimated to be RM30 billion.

A little word of warning: the numbers for the federal government revenue from the Treasury significantly differ from the ones produced in the BNM Monthly Statistical Bulletin. So, the comparison is somewhat off.

Even so, if the Treasury numbers are right, then the consolidated public sector account tells a very different story than the one we used to. This may suggest that the wider public sector may have a problem balancing its primary balance.

As far as comparing federated and unitary states is concerned, maybe only the federal and the state government accounts should be combined to allow for a truer comparison. Without the necessary adjustment, a federation may have better financial health than a unitary state only artificially.

Another thing about the consolidated account is that it tells us that in 2011, the public sector suffered from 9.9% deficit to nominal GDP. This is much higher than the federal government’s 4.8% deficit to GDP.

On the 9.9% deficit to GDP, the point of comparing the deficit to nominal GDP is to incorporate the idea that a growing economy allows for more fund raising by the government. More generally, it informs whether there is space in the economy to raise more money through borrowing. The deficit derived from the consolidated account suggests that there is less room compared to what is suggested by the federal government finance.

Categories
Economics

[2571] Cars, duties, congestion, pollution, revenue and income effect

Several new points were raised with regards to my post on duties and cars yesterday. One was pollution, two was government revenue and three, in one way or another, income effect. It is not exactly income effect but close enough.

Concern number one is easy. But let us state the pollution concern. The concern is that there is already too many cars on the streets and there is a need to reduce pollution, which I take as carbon and other greenhouse gases emissions. I also take that as actually reducing the number of cars. But here is the thing, substitution to foreign cars may actual reduce emissions without having to reduce the number of car on the roads. The reason is that comparable foreign cars-European, Japanese and possibly Korean-have higher emission standard than locally-produced cars. With more competition, consumers have a chance to choose emission-efficient cars over relative gas-guzzlers without too much price variation. End result: less emission given the quantity of cars.

Concern number two deserves a very libertarian answer. Cut government spending instead. The duties on foreign cars were always meant as protectionist measure, not primarily for revenue-generating purpose. The revenue derived from the duties should really be considered as a bonus. Except that the government is so used to it, that it forgets. With the fiscal discipline, they need the bonus. One way to cut spending is to cut fuel subsidy. In fact, tax it. Yes, tax fuel purchase.

Concern number three is harder to address and I actually thought about it but ultimately decided to not touch it. As try to explain it below, you will understand why I decided against touching it.

Income effect (not exactly but close) or specifically, the new competitive environment may push prices down across the board. This may be true and I have alluded to this in an article I wrote for The Malaysian Insider earlier. In turn, this may increase vehicles on the road as more are able to purchase cars. Or it may not. There is a sound theoretical case for an increase, but there is also a sound theoretical case for the opposite.

Initially, I wanted to address this in terms of stickiness and temporally. In English, prices will adjust only slowly to a new reality. More technically, all-in prices of domestic cars are sticky and that of foreign cars are not.

Why do I apply stickiness on domestic cars but not foreign cars? It is because the abolition or the reduction of duties is easy to calculate. It is on top of the car price in the sense that pre-duties prices are associated with the way companies run their business. It is this pre-tax, pre-duties prices that are sticky.

Most of domestic car prices are made up of sticky components. For foreign-manufactured cars, a significant portion of its end prices are made up of non-sticky components, i.e. the tax and the duties. This is why I apparently apply stickiness only on domestic cars. In truth, I am applying stickiness on both domestic and foreign cars while taking into account domestic cars have significantly less portion of non-sticky components than foreign cars, within the context of import duties abolition.

Also, consider this. The net earnings of Proton in 2011 was not even 2% of its revenue. How much room Proton has for a serious price war? Not much in the near future. This, I think, is an indication that there is a price floor: there is not much incentive to push price of sedans down too much beyond whatever Proton is charging. Proton cannot charge less anyway.

So, in the short term, the specific income effect will not be present. And no traffic congestion issue.

The long term issue is hard to say. It depends on non-cooperation (it is quite possible for firms to achieve implicit understanding in price settings without getting into trouble with anti-trust law).

Ultimately, it depends on how efficient those under pressure can be. What is certain is that that takes time.

It also depends on how low prices would get. I have not done the calculation but I have a feeling, both Proton’s small margin and game theory will provide a floor how low prices can get. And foreign manufacturers definitely would not want to price their cars so low as to earn a loss. Furthermore, that would be dumping and they will get into trouble with that.

So, in the long run, it may, or it may not have effect on congestion.

Besides, if there would be worse congestion, it would be very naive to think there is no other accompanying policy to address it. I have one immediately in my mind: congestion fee within the cities.

Categories
Economics

[2568] Will government revenue fall with tax relief associated with private pension fund?

The Prime Minister finally launched a private pension fund. I am supportive of the idea of private and voluntary pension fund, but I am not going to discuss that here.

What I find interesting rather is that contributors to the private fund are entitled to RM3,000 tax relief in a year. This raises one question: will that lower potential tax revenue for the government significantly in the future?

Consider a person that pays income tax of exactly RM3,000 in a year. Rather than pay that tax, it would be rational for him to put in RM3,000 in the private fund. The money remains his and he may even get extra returns from that. For the government, that is RM3,000 worth of potential revenue loss.

Now, the estimated 2011 income tax revenue derived from individuals was RM20.2 billion according to the Monthly Statistical Bulletin for May published by the Bank Negara.[1] According to a report by the New Straits Times, 2.5 million individuals were expected to file their 2011 taxes.[2] That means on average, a taxpayer paid approximately RM3,628 worth of income tax.

Of course, not everybody paid RM3,628 worth of income tax. According to the 10th Malaysia Plan, about 44% of house household earned less than RM2,5o0. Individuals within these household do not pay income tax. About 76% of household earn less than RM5,000. Households earning less than RM5,000 but more than or equal to RM2,500 may or may not pay income tax depending on who among them work. In short, the distribution of payment from taxpayers are skewed.

It is hard to link the household data to the 2.5 million expected tax filers. First, not all filers pay tax. Second, the household data assume each household has four persons in it. I would assume 2 working adults in the household. But that does not have to be the case in reality and this will affect calculation for income tax paid by the 76% household.

But, if we were to take the average blindly, if we all were rational and optimized our finances, if we were still in 2011 and if the private fund tax relief were in place in 2011, that would suggest that the government would have lost RM7.5 billion worth of income tax revenue. In 2011, the federal government suffered a fiscal deficit of RM42.5 billion, or 4.8% of nominal GDP. Without the RM7.5 billion, the deficit-to-GDP ratio would have been 5.7%.

One could take comfort that 5.7% deficit would be the maximum damage and the actual damage would be lower than that. But would still be higher than the actual 2011 deficit of 4.8% and that is the point.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved
[1] — KUALA LUMPUR: AROUND 2.5 million Malaysians are expected to submit their taxes through e-Filing system this year. Inland Revenue Board public relations officer Masrun Maslim said this was an increase of 28.87 per cent compared with last year. [More taxpayers opting for e-Filing. New Straits Times. March 17 2012]

[2] — See the May 2012 Monthly Statistical Bulletin at Bank Negara Malaysia. Extracted on July 19 2012.