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¿Aplica la curva de Laffer al IVA sobre los servicios sanitarios privados? (Does the Laffer Curve Apply to VAT on Private Healthcare Services?)
Abstract
In October 2020, the Spanish government announced that it was considering eliminating the current VAT exemption for private health services. Can we expect a positive or negative impact of this tax reform on the public deficit? This article presents a model to analyse this fiscal policy and estimates the expected impact using microsimulations. The results indicate that abolishing the VAT exemption and establishing a tax rate of 21% could result in an increase of the public deficit. The amount of this impact largely depends on the elasticity of the transfer of users from private insurance to the National Health Service. For a certain range of elasticities, establishing a reduced VAT rate of 10% may mitigate the negative impact on the deficit. These results are in line with those postulated by the Laffer curve for direct taxation.
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