In recent years, two distinct but related questions have been raised with respect to value-added taxes (VATs). Concern has been expressed over whether it is desirable or even possible for both national and subnational governments in federal countries such as India, Argentina, and Russia to...

Richard Bird’s considerable and lasting contributions to the value-added tax (VAT) field and his influence in the real world were, to a significant extent, a result of his intellectual curiosity, his discipline, and the rules of engagement in research that he followed himself and expected his...

In this paper we discuss some recent critical literature on VAT in developing countries relating to its revenue productivity, its equity, and its impact on the development of the formal economy. Illustrating our argument with reference to two recent country studies (of Ukraine and Jamaica) we...

We compare and contrast theCVAT and VIVAT approaches discussed in the preceding papers byMcLure and Keen and Smith with the dual VAT originally discussedin our 1998 paper. We conclude that each of these approachesseems most suitable to different circumstances, but that noneof them answers all...

Corporation tax systems around the world treat gains and losses asymmetrically. This paper examines the impact of changing the refundability of tax losses in a cash flow tax system. A dynamic game of complete information is used to analyse refund policies in an imperfectly competitive setting....

This paper examines the impact of changing the extent to which tax losses are refunded to firms in a model of imperfect competition. It proposes a particular collusive equilibrium in a repeated oligopoly with homogeneous quantity-setting firms. The industry sustains tacit collusion by using...

How to tax financial services is in many ways the key ‘frontier’ issue for VAT in developed countries. No convincing conceptually correct and practical solution for capturing the bulk of financial services under the VAT has yet been developed anywhere. Developing and transitional countries...

An empirical model is developed to estimate the probability of a given tax status based on firm characteristics. A structural switching regression model of the firm’s demand for capital goods is next specified and incorporates expressions for the user cost of capital which account for tax...

The application of the value-added tax to public sector bodies, non-profit organizations and charitable organizations substantially departs from full taxation in most VAT regimes around the world. The problems with the mostly exempt regime for those organizations are reviewed. Options to modify...