IESET.
Policies·dk_tax_reform_1987

Danish 1987 tax reform — rate reduction and base broadening

DNK·1987 – ·enacted 1987-06-19candidate
movestax progressivity↓

What the policy did

Schlüter tax reform broadening the personal income tax base, reducing top marginal rates, and tightening interest-deduction scope. Foundation for subsequent Danish dual-income-tax adoption in 1993. Part of the Nordic base-broadening / rate-cutting wave of the late 1980s.

Policy-content fingerprint — what this policy moved, on which axes

Per invariant 3, reforms are scored by what they did on each channel-separated axis, not by the party that enacted them. This fingerprint is how the policy-match engine finds historical analogues.

intended
↓
tax progressivity
fiscal.tax_progressivity
Progressivity of the personal income tax schedule, including top marginal rates, bracket spread, and targeted credits (EITC-equivalents).
decreased · moderate
less progressive (flatter rates, compression, smaller credits)
Top rate cut + base broadening reduced formal progressivity.

Enacted by

Empirical evidence — linked hypotheses

Explicit links are curated by the author. Inferred links are hypotheses in the library that test the same axes this policy moved — the framework's answer to "what does the data say about a policy like this?".

Chilean post-Pinochet tax progressivity reforms — Concertación-era Aylwin-Frei marginal-rate increases 1990-1995, Bachelet 2014 reform raising corporate rate from 20 to 27 percent + DTA tightening, Boric 2022-2024 reform attempts — produced gradual reductions in the Chilean top-1 pretax income share by at least 1.5 percentage points over 1990-2024 vs Latin-American synthetic comparator pool, with most of the level shift concentrated in 1990-2000 rather than the recent reform attempts.
tax_inequality_chile_post_pinochet_progressivityinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivity
INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — insufficient pre-period coverage (years=0, donors=0)
run pending
Greek Memorandum-era tax hikes 2010-2018 (top marginal income rate raised to 45 percent, VAT hikes to 24 percent standard, ENFIA recurring property tax 2014, solidarity surcharge 2011-2019) raised the disposable-income Gini coefficient by at least 1.5 Gini-points relative to Eurozone- comparator synthetic control over the period, with the regressivity driven by VAT and property-tax incidence rather than income-tax progressivity.
tax_inequality_greece_troika_tax_hikes_2010_2018inferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivity
PARTIAL — mean_gap=+3.175, |gap|/pre_sd=3.7, p_perm=0.333 (gap below 0.5×pre_sd or placebo p≥0.10)
partial
Post-apartheid South African tax structure (top marginal income rate raised to 45 percent in 2017, capital-gains inclusion ratio raised 2012 + 2016, recurring property-tax effective burden via municipal rates) produced a measurable reduction in the South African top-1 pretax income share over 1995-2024 vs SADC synthetic comparator pool, with the recurring property-tax channel contributing more than the marginal-income-rate channel to the distributional effect.
tax_inequality_south_africa_property_tax_burdeninferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivity
INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — insufficient pre-period coverage (years=5, donors=0)
run pending
Progressive income-tax marginal rates (up to roughly 70% top rate) have been compatible with strong growth in post-war US 1945-1980 and Nordics, falsifying extreme-Laffer-curve positions.
top_marginal_rate_growth_tradeoffinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivity
PARTIAL — coef=+0.0006927, p=0.558 (above α=0.05); direction inconclusive
partial
Countries in the top quartile of Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have lower latest-available extreme-poverty headcount than bottom-quartile countries, consistent with free-market country policy regimes outperforming less market-oriented regimes on this outcome.
heritage_tax_burden_extreme_poverty_current_gapinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivity
PARTIAL — gap sign/magnitude not decisive (diff=1.296, p=0.7399)
partial
Conditional on latest real GDP per capita and broad Heritage region, countries with higher Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have lower latest-available extreme-poverty headcount.
heritage_tax_burden_extreme_poverty_income_region_robustnessinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivity
PARTIAL — controlled coefficient not decisive (coef=-1.28, p=0.2307)
partial
Countries in the top quartile of Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have higher latest-available account ownership than bottom-quartile countries, consistent with free-market country policy regimes outperforming less market-oriented regimes on this outcome.
heritage_tax_burden_account_ownership_current_gapinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivity
REFUTED — top-vs-bottom gap has opposite sign and Welch p=2.887e-05
refuted
Conditional on latest real GDP per capita and broad Heritage region, countries with higher Heritage lower-tax-burden score in 2024 have higher latest-available account ownership.
heritage_tax_burden_account_ownership_income_region_robustnessinferred
viafiscal.tax_progressivity
REFUTED — controlled market-score coefficient has opposite sign and p=0.01161
refuted

Similar historical policies

Ranked by axis-fingerprint overlap with this policy. Direction match bolded — those are the closest historical analogues. Shape of the match is what drives policy-outcome comparison, not the country or party label.

Goods and Services Tax introduction
AUS·2000
match
0.8
tax progressivity
15 percent flat personal income tax 2008
CZE·2008
match
0.8
tax progressivity
Czech super-gross-wage abolition 2021
CZE·2021
match
0.8
tax progressivity
Laar government flat-tax + currency-board reform (Estonia, 1992-1995)
EST·1994
match
0.8
tax progressivity
Estonian flat-tax reform 1994
EST·1994
match
0.8
tax progressivity
Flat personal-income-tax reform (Hungary, 2011)
HUN·2011
match
0.8
tax progressivity
Netanyahu Emergency Economic Plan (Arrangements Law 2003)
ISR·2003
match
0.8
tax progressivity
Gotabaya Rajapaksa tax cut package (Sri Lanka 2019)
LKA·2019
match
0.8
tax progressivity

References