Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This article analyzes the history of the Chilean personal income tax (PIT) to explain the persistence of a class-based and progressive PIT within a context of a regressive fiscal system. We provide new archival evidence regarding fiscal politics since the nineteenth century to estimate the generalization of the PIT between 1925 and 2014. Combining statistical information and parliamentary records, we follow the PIT’s trajectory in relation to elites’ self-interest, paternalistic understandings of the fiscal pact and citizenship, and the looming presence of natural resources. By keeping the PIT class-based, allegedly to protect workers, fiscal politics defined citizenship through expenditure instead of taxation. Those excluded from income taxation bear the brunt of indirect taxes—which support social spending—albeit without voice over fiscal policies.
Authors: Andrés Biehl, José Tomás Labarca, Jorge Atria
Language: English
Topic: Economic and Fiscal Studies
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,550
Awards: G1807231940, G3392209891, SER Y PARECER DE LA ELITE ECONOMICA PERCEPCIONES DISTINCIONES E INTERACCIONES EN LA JERARQUIA SOCIOECONOMICA CHILENA, CONTINUITY AND CHANGE OF SOCIAL OBLIGATIONS ACROSS THE LIFE COURSE THE CASE OF SOCIAL SECURITY IN CHILE, CENTRE FOR SOCIAL CONFLICT AND COHESION STUDIES
OpenAlex ID: W4413229650