Despite various reform efforts over the years, the tax system in the Philippines continues to suffer from chronic weaknesses. The Duterte administration is pursuing a simpler, more efficient, and more equitable tax system to support its economic growth strategy. The administration's...

The study assesses the impact of the first package of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (or TRAIN), which includes an increase in petroleum and coal excise taxes, passed by Congress in 2017. The study also reviews the context of the energy sector in the country given that petroleum...

Recent financial crises in Europe as well as the periodic battles in the U.S. over the debt ceiling point to the importance of fiscal discipline among developed countries. This paper develops an open economy model, calibrated to the U.S. and a subset of the EMU, to evaluate the impact of various...

This paper decomposes consumption tax revenues in OECD countries into the implicit tax rate (ITR) and consumption relative to GDP, to identify how economic downturns affect consumption tax revenues. It further considers the impact of changes in VAT efficiency and VAT rates on ITRs. The analysis...

Even before the pandemic, an ageing population, a potential over-reliance on corporation tax receipts and an inevitable decline in motor tax revenues combined to make the need for future tax rises likely. This paper examines a range of options that a government seeking to raise or replace tax...

The tax system is commonly understood to be professionally designed and administrated. This perception presupposes a level of neutrality where tax decisions are based on irrefutable reason and concrete data. In practice, however, both the design and administration of a tax system are subject to...