Indirect Taxation in Greece: Evaluation and Possible Reform.

The paper assesses the distributional and efficiency/disincentive aspects of the Greek indirect tax system, which provides 60 percent of total tax revenue. The marginal welfare costs of broad commodity groups were computed to identify welfare-improving directions of reform. The disincentive effects were estimated from marginal indirect tax rates using Household Expenditure Survey data. The indirect tax structure is shown to be unnecessarily complicated and inefficient, without achieving any redistributive goals. The UK indirect tax structure was shown to be simpler, more equitable and more efficient to implement and administer when simulated on Greek consumers. Copyright 2003 by Kluwer Academic Publishers