Tampere University to lead new Centre of Excellence in Tax Systems Research
The CoEs are research communities which are already at or striving for the international cutting edge of research in their field. The total duration of a CoE is eight years.
The aim of the CoE in Tax Systems Research is to construct a comprehensive picture of the effects of taxation and social protection and the way they affect the distribution of well-being. Finland collects around €100 billion in tax revenue annually.
“Because modern welfare states collect so much of their GDP in tax revenues, the tax system has a significant impact on the functioning of the economy and on people’s lives,” says Professor Kaisa Kotakorpi, Director of the CoE at Tampere University.
“Taxation can also be used to tackle environmental and health problems and to achieve a fair distribution of income,” Kotakorpi adds.
The CoE will explore these areas of taxation with a wide variety of methods, drawing on extensive register data, survey data and field experiments, and by providing new theoretical insights.
“The research programme will challenge the previous understanding of the impact of taxation on the behaviour of businesses and individual taxpayers, and its results can have a significant effect on the public policy recommendations for a good tax system,” Kotakorpi says.
The research will be carried out in cooperation between Finnish institutions conducting high quality tax research in the field of economics and with other leading international researchers. The sub-projects of the CoE are led by Research Professor Tuomas Kosonen (VATT), Professor Jarkko Harju (Tampere University and VATT) and Professor Jukka Pirttilä (University of Helsinki and VATT).
Photo: Jonne Renvall
