How can governments reduce the prevalence of cross-border tax fraud? This paper argues that the use of digital technologies offers an opportunity to reduce fraud and increase government revenue. Using data on intra-EU and world trade transactions, we present evidence that (i) cross-border trade...

This paper outlines reforms that have been achieved in the modernization of the customs administrations of francophone sub-Saharan (African) countries since the mid-1990s. It also highlights the remaining issues in this process. Progress has been made in the automation of operations and...

Tax administration improvements have contributed significantly to a doubling of China's tax-to-GDP ratio and the substantial reduction in taxpayers' compliance costs since the mid-1990s. This paper describes the key features of China's tax administration and their evolution over the last 20...

Despite positive but mixed progress over two decades, most lower income African countries need to enhance their low tax-to-GDP ratios by mobilizing domestic resources to complement debt relief, donor aid and to achieve the MDG and poverty reduction objectives. With these goals in mind, most...

There has been widespread adoption of new laws to support new public management. In many countries that have implemented comprehensive and deep reforms, new or amended laws have fundamentally changed the role of the state and the budget processes supporting it. Paradoxically, far-reaching...

This paper assesses a decade of experience in civil service reform in a sample of 32 sub-Saharan African countries. Many countries have made an important start towards reducing excessive staffing levels and the nominal wage bill, but less progress has been made in decompressing salary...

The paper provides an overview of revenue administration reforms implemented in Middle Eastern and North African countries over the past decade with IMF assistance. Although reforming tax and customs administration is neither quick nor simple, several countries in the region have embarked on...