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...

In 2008, Madagascar reformed its domestic tax system. Because the excise duties and VAT regimes were reformed, the taxation of imports has changed. This paper quantifies how the reform changes the protection against imports and the fiscal revenues from taxation of imports. It shows that, even if...

In recent years, the IMF has released a growing number of reports and other documents covering economic and financial developments and trends in member countries. Each report, prepared by a staff team after discussions with government officials, is published at the option of the member country.

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,...

This paper assesses the effects of India's tax system on growth, through the level and productivity of private investment. Comparison of India's indicators of effective tax rates and tax revenue productivity with other countries shows that the Indian tax system is characterized by: (1) a high...

A weakness of decentralization and overall tax reforms in Latin America is the lack of attention to adequate taxation at the subnational government. A reliance on shared taxes with extensive earmarking leads to weak subnational accountability and soft budget constraints. The paper explores the...

Public sector revenue has declined markedly in the Philippines over the past seven years. Most observers of the Philippine economy agree that rebuilding public sector revenue will be critical to reducing deficits and ensuring public sector debt sustainability. This paper reviews several of the...

Empirical evidence on the relationship between trade liberalization, exchange rates, and tax revenue is mixed. This paper examines these linkages anew. Using a panel of 22 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, over 1980-1996, we perform Generalized Method of Moment regressions to test this...

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...

Congo's vital dependence on trade for development stands in contradiction with its trade policy. As a member of the CEMAC, Congo's tariff scheme at least formally is guided by CEMAC's 1994 trade regime agreement. This paper shows CEMAC's customs code is restrictive relative to that of comparable...