Over the past decade, a number of countries have shifted to single rate tax systems with broader bases and lower rates. In the U.S. , there continues to be discussion of the merits of a consumption tax, and of base-broadening reforms to the income tax system. The objective of this paper is to...

The general idea is the following: any tax authority that respects basic human rights has to impose taxes on a base to avoid random and arbitrary taxation. The tax base should be announced prior to the imposition of the tax and therefore, taxpayers are given an advanced warning concerning the...

In this paper, we compare the economic effects of such an approach to tax reform, relative to the enactment of a pure consumption tax such as the Hall and Rabushka (1983, 1995) Flat Tax. For the former approach, we analyze a stylized version of the GIT, which provides for consumption tax...

In this paper, we analyze the case of developing a country that has been involved in a long-term comprehensive tax reform. One might argue that Jamaica is a good case study of the fiscal realities of moving from a conventional tax system to a flat tax system. However, through the reforms of the...