project: Simple projections of the annual 2% samples of Australian...
In grattan: Australian Tax Policy Analysis

project

R Documentation

Simple projections of the annual 2% samples of Australian Taxation Office tax returns.

Description

Simple projections of the annual 2% samples of Australian Taxation Office tax returns.

Usage

project(
  sample_file,
  h = 0L,
  fy.year.of.sample.file = NULL,
  WEIGHT = 50L,
  excl_vars = NULL,
  forecast.dots = list(estimator = "mean", pred_interval = 80),
  wage.series = NULL,
  lf.series = NULL,
  use_age_pop_forecast = FALSE,
  .recalculate.inflators = NA,
  .copyDT = TRUE,
  check_fy_sample_file = TRUE,
  differentially_uprate_Sw = NA,
  r_super_balance = 1.05
)

Arguments

`sample_file`	A `data.table` matching a 2% sample file from the ATO. See package `taxstats` for an example.
`h`	An integer. How many years should the sample file be projected?
`fy.year.of.sample.file`	The financial year of `sample_file`. If `NULL`, the default, the number is inferred from the number of rows of `sample_file` to be one of `2012-13`, `2013-14`, `2014-15`, `2015-16`, or `2016-17`.
`WEIGHT`	The sample weight for the sample file. (So a 2% file has `WEIGHT` = 50.)
`excl_vars`	A character vector of column names in `sample_file` that should not be inflated. Columns not present in the 2013-14 sample file are not inflated and nor are the columns `Ind`, `Gender`, `age_range`, `Occ_code`, `Partner_status`, `Region`, `Lodgment_method`, and `PHI_Ind`.
`forecast.dots`	A list containing parameters to be passed to `generic_inflator`.
`wage.series`	See `wage_inflator`. Note that the `Sw_amt` will uprated by `differentially_uprate_wage` (if requested).
`lf.series`	See `lf_inflator_fy`.
`use_age_pop_forecast`	Should the inflation of the number of taxpayers be moderated by the number of resident persons born in a certain year? If `TRUE`, younger ages will grow at a slightly higher rate beyond 2018 than older ages.
`.recalculate.inflators`	(logical, default: `NA`). Should `generic_inflator()` or `CG_inflator` be called to project the other variables? Adds time. Default `NA` means `TRUE` if the pre-calculated inflators are available, `FALSE` otherwise.
`.copyDT`	(logical, default: `TRUE`) Should a `copy()` of `sample_file` be made? If set to `FALSE`, will update `sample_file` in place, which may be necessary when memory is constrained, but is dangerous as it modifies the original data and its projection. (So if you run the same code twice you may end up with a projection `2h` years ahead, not `h` years.)
`check_fy_sample_file`	(logical, default: `TRUE`) Should `fy.year.of.sample.file` be checked against `sample_file`? By default, `TRUE`, an error is raised if the base is not 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17, or 2017-18, and a warning is raised if the number of rows in `sample_file` is different to the known number of rows in the sample files.
`differentially_uprate_Sw`	(logical, default: `NA`) Should the salary and wage column (`Sw_amt`) be differentially uprated using (`differentially_uprate_wage`)? Default of `NA` means use differential uprating is used when `fy.year.of.sample.file <= "2016-17"`. It is known that the Treasury stopped using differential uprating by 2019. Selecting `TRUE` for `fy.year.of.sample.file > "2016-17"` is an error as the precalculated values are not available.
`r_super_balance`	The factor to inflate super balances by (annualized). Set to `1.05` for backwards compatibility. The annual superannuation bulletin of June 2019 from APRA reported 7.3% growth of funds with more than fund members over the previous 5 years and 7.9% growth over the previous ten years.

Details

Currently components of taxable income are individually inflated based on their historical trends in the ATO sample files, with the exception of:

inflated using differentially_uprate_wage.: Sw_amt
inflated using wage_inflator: Alow_ben_amt, ETP_txbl_amt, Rptbl_Empr_spr_cont_amt, Non_emp_spr_amt, MCS_Emplr_Contr, MCS_Prsnl_Contr, MCS_Othr_Contr
inflated using cpi_inflator: WRE_car_amt, WRE_trvl_amt, WRE_uniform_amt, WRE_self_amt, WRE_other_amt
inflated by lf_inflator_fy: WEIGHT
inflated by CG_inflator: Net_CG_amt, Tot_CY_CG_amt

Superannuation balances are inflated by a fixed rate of 5% p.a.

We recommend you use sample_file_1213 over sample_file_1314, unless you need the superannuation variables, as the latter suggests lower-than-recorded tax collections. However, more recent data is of course preferable.

Value

A sample file with the same number of rows as sample_file but with inflated values as a forecast for the sample file in to_fy. If WEIGHT is not already a column of sample_file, it will be added and its sum will be the predicted number of taxpayers in to_fy.