Times change. In the words of an old English ballad, some things seem to have “turned upside down” in recent years. Since 2000, Latin America has become less unequal, with lower levels of poverty and likely greater economic mobility (Lustig, Lopez-Calvo and Ortiz-Juarez 2012), assisted in...

Times change. In the words of an old English ballad, some things seem to have “turned upside down” in recent years. Since 2000, Latin America has become less unequal, with lower levels of poverty and likely greater economic mobility (Lustig, Lopez-Calvo and Ortiz-Juarez 2012), assisted in...

In developed countries, the income tax, especially the personal income tax, has long been viewed as the primary instrument for redistributing income and wealth. This article examines whether it makes sense for developing countries to rely on the income tax for redistributive purposes. We put...

Fifty years of experience tells us that the right game for tax researchers and outside agencies interested in fostering better sustainable tax systems in developing countries researchers is not the short-term political game in which policy decisions are made. The right game for them is instead...

Although VATs applied simultaneously within the same country by different levels of government were long considered to be either undesirable or infeasible, two quite different types of sub-central VATs – regional consumption taxes and local business taxes -- now exist in a number of countries....

This paper reviews the theoretical and practical issues surrounding the decentralization of responsibility for the provision of infrastructure to local governments in low income countries. The focus is on structural rather than management issues. There is plenty of evidence that following the...

The most important tax development of the last half century has undoubtedly been the rise to prominence of the value-added tax (VAT).2 This tax has taken center stage almost everywhere (with the significant exception of the United States) and has become a revenue mainstay for many countries. The...

This paper is a non-technical discussion by an economist and lawyer, each with long international experience in taxation, of the constraints and objectives that in principle and practice shape tax policy design. After discussing the main factors traditionally taken into account by those charged...

One way to design a local tax system is to determine the desired size and nature of local expenditures and then put in place a tax (and transfer) system providing incentives that lead local decision-makers to choose to finance that expenditure package. In practice, however, there are seldom...

This paper reviews the literature on the costs of VAT, beginning with a review of concepts with regard to different aspects of administrative and compliance costs and then a review of quantitative estimates of such costs. It concludes with a brief discussion of VAT non-compliance and fraud with...