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Tax collection lags and the revenue-maximising inflation

The case of Greece

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Abstract

When tax payments take place with a considerable time lag, inflation erodes part of their real value, and this loss may be comparable or even surpass the well-known gains from seigniorage. The paper finds that for the economy of Greece, a reduction of inflation will actually raise the total sum of tax collection and seigniorage, thus easing and not aggravating the debt-accumulation process.

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Christodoulakis, N.M. Tax collection lags and the revenue-maximising inflation. Empirical Economics 19, 329–342 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01205941

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01205941

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