Canada has operated both a federal value–added tax (the GST) and two variants of provincial VATs for the last 15 years. In addition, several provinces have continued to operate retail sales taxes similar to those in most US states. A brief review of experience around the world with...

Discusses several aspects of fiscal decentralization. Defines the meaning and rationale of fiscal decentralization and reviews the issue of the choice of local revenue sources from the perspective of establishing efficient local governments, including the roles of user charges, property taxes,...

We review the changing nature of tax policy in developing countries over the last 30 years and consider what factors determining the level and structure of tax revenues in such countries may have changed recently and how such changes may affect future developments.

Over a decade ago, several Canadian provinces replaced their retail sales taxes with value-added taxes. This paper estimates the effects of this tax substitution on business investment in these provinces. Consistent with standard investment theory, we find that the reform led to significant...

Tax systems in developing countries, like those in more developed countries, face both new challenges and new possibilities as a result of technological change. In developing countries, taxpayers and tax administrations must cope with more difficult environments with fewer resources. Some issues...

The last decade has been witness to one of the largest tax experiments in economic history: the transformation from centrally-planned to market-based tax systems. The cultural and institutional legacy of central planning has had a lasting impact on tax reform in countries in transition. The...

In this paper, we examine the theoretical and empirical implications of accounting for multiple modes of tax evasion. We find that increasing the probability of detection in a given mode has an ambiguous effect on compliance in the targeted mode as well as the untargeted mode. In order to gain...

Economists have devoted relatively little attention to explaining why some state and local governments choose more progressive fiscal instruments than others. This paper provides an empirical model to identify the determinants of income redistribution as a budgetary choice, and estimates the...