This paper examines whether the clarity of central bank communication about inflation has changed with the economic environment. We use readability statistics and content analysis to study the clarity of communication on the inflation outlook by seven central banks between 1997 and 2010....

Several administrations have adopted electronic fiscal devices (EFDs) in their quest to combat noncompliance, particularly as regards sales and the value-added tax (VAT) payable on sales. The introduction of EFDs typically requires considerable effort and has costs both for the administration...

This paper provides a comprehensive, updated picture of energy subsidies at the global and regional levels. It focuses on the broad notion of post-tax energy subsidies, which arise when consumer prices are below supply costs plus a tax to reflect environmental damage and an additional tax...

This paper examines the role of tax administration in developing countries from an economic perspective. The traditional separation of tax policy and tax administration in the literature is shown to break down in developing countries, where tax administrators decide in what manner complicated...

The value-added tax (VAT) is often a major component of national fiscal structures. While its effects on allocative efficiency, inflation, income distribution, and tax administration have been addressed, little work, exists on the theoretical base of a VAT, given its structure. This is essential...

The paper provides empirical evidence on collection lags in major categories of government revenue and analyzes the estimated revenue-eroding effects of inflation within the standard model of inflationary finance. The evidence indicates a wide variation in collection lags among the categories of...

Tax authorities in several countries have intensified their surveillance of intercompany transfer pricing in recent years. This paper examines the legislative and administrative issues related to the treatment of intercompany transfer pricing for tax purposes. It reviews the existing...

This paper studies an optimal tax problem for a small open economy where collecting taxes is costly. It is shown that, in the presence of collection costs modeled as an increasing function of the tax rate: (a) the standard rules of optimal commodity taxation (the Ramsey, the inverse elasticity,...

Considering the need to broaden the tax base and to increase tax revenue in an efficient, equitable, and cost-effective manner, this paper analyzes presumptive taxation methods and their application in sub-Saharan Africa. Presumptive taxation involves simple techniques to capture income that...