Inequality and Redistribution in the Netherlands

Arjan Bruil , Celine van Essen , Wouter Leenders , Arjan Lejour , Jan Möhlmann , Simon Rabaté (1)

1 INED - Institut national d'études démographiques

This paper combines detailed administrative records on the universe of the Dutch population with national accounts aggregates to provide a thorough description of income inequality before and after taxation and government spending. Accounting for domestic and foreign retained earnings has a substantial impact on inequality, raising the top 10% share of pre-tax national income from 29% to 31%. Overall, the tax system is regressive due to high consumption taxes and a low tax burden on capital income. The entire reduction in inequality - the top 10% income share falls to 26% - comes from government spending that is targeted at the bottom of the distribution

Mots clés: inequality; income; redistribution; tax system; Netherlands

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société

Arjan Bruil, Celine van Essen, Wouter Leenders, Arjan Lejour, Jan Möhlmann, et al.. Inequality and Redistribution in the Netherlands. 2022. ⟨hal-03869680⟩