H60 - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt: GeneralReturn

The paper deals with Czech and Slovak budget policy during the covid-19 pandemic. Due to extensive expansionary measures implemented as part of the budget policy, the Czech and Slovak public finances were disrupted. Deviations in the implementation of the Czech and Slovak state budgets are assessed using a combination of actual values and own forecasts based on SARIMA-based econometric models applied to the 2010–2020 time series. The main goal of the text is to determine the overall impact of the covid-19 pandemic on the management of the Czech and Slovak state budgets caused by increasing public expenditures and a decrease in public revenues. Special attention is paid to the related additional expenses and reduced budget revenues. The results of the most suitable models are used as input data for the autonomous development of the state budgets of the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic without the influence of the covid-19 pandemic.

Based on OECD Revenue Statistics data, the article analyses the impact of two external shocks (the great financial depression of 2008-2009 and covid-19 in 2020) on the size and structure of tax revenues for OECD countries. Using the descriptive statistics and cluster analysis, the authors have established that the tax systems of both developed and developing countries responded to the external shocks in 2008–2009 and 2020+ with a decline in the overall tax burden (tax to GDP ratios), due to a faster decline in nominal tax revenues than in nominal GDP. The decline was more pronounced in 2009 and within developing countries. During both shocks, the share of income taxes (incl. social security contributions) has dropped, while this decline was more intense in 2009. In 2009, the importance of consumption taxes has increased, and in 2020 it decreased. The clusters of countries in terms of the size and structure of taxes are basically the same throughout the period 2008–2020. However, it is not possible to unambiguously identify clusters of countries that would respond to both shocks in their tax policy and taxation system in the same way.