The impact of individual elements of the transport tax on income inequality in the regions of the Northwestern Federal District: Testing hypotheses of the redistributive effect
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31279/REFP-2026-4-329Keywords:
transport tax, tax incentives, tax rates, poverty level, income ineuqalityAbstract
This article examines the potential of the personal transport tax as an instrument for reducing poverty and income inequality in the regions of the Northwestern Federal District of Russian Federation. The aim of the study is to assess the impact of tax benefits and the progressivity of transport tax rates on the poverty level and the Gini index across the regions of the Northwestern Federal District. The methodological basis of the study comprises the concept of tax fairness and econometric methods for panel data analysis. The study draws on data from Form 5-TN of the statistical reporting of the Federal Tax Service of Russia, regional legislative acts on the transport tax, and Rosstat data for the period 2014–2024. By extending research on the social role of taxation, this study contributes both to the theory of tax policy, by broadening the understanding of redistributive channels associated with the transport tax, and to the empirical literature on inequality and poverty in the northwestern regions of Russia. Using panel data for 11 regions, random-effects and fixed-effects regression models were constructed, and four hypotheses concerning the relationship between tax benefits and rate progressivity, on the one hand, and poverty levels and the Gini index, on the other, were tested. The authors find that a broader coverage of tax benefits and a higher average benefit amount do not produce the expected poverty- and inequality-reducing effect, whereas an increase in the progressivity of the rate schedule is significantly associated with a reduction in income differentiation. It is concluded that, in its current form, the transport tax benefit mechanism performs primarily a compensatory rather than a targeted redistributive function, whereas rate progressivity exhibits a more pronounced potential for smoothing income inequality.
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