Higher local taxes a threat to jobs

Writing about the UK government’s consultation on Local Government Finance reform a couple of months ago, SERC affiliate Teemu Lyytikäinen talked about the fact that government had no intention of allowing councils to set their own business tax rates. He argued that the problem was partly political, but that the bigger issue is that it’s not clear what the effects of full localisation would be. There are several main fears. One is a race to the bottom – local authorities undercutting their competitors and undermining tax basis. The other fears relate to the opposite scenario, a `race to the top'. Would some councils set very high tax rates and waste the revenues on useless programmes and bureaucracy? Would these very high tax rates bring more pain to firms already struggling in the face of the recession? Some of my recent research, published in the Economic Journal this week, provides evidence that this fear is to some extent justified.