The past two decades have witnessed widespread attempts to reform tax structures in developing countries. As the relatively small formal sector limits the base for taxes on income, the major reform is to replace trade taxes with sales taxes. To the extent that this has involved rationalisation...

Public choice analysts have often argued that the level of government spending willreflect voter-taxpayer’s demand for public goods, while the fiscal illusion literature hasargued that certain features of the tax structure affect voter’s perceptions of their taxburden causing them to...

The past two decades have witnessed widespread reforms of tax structures in developing countries. This article reviews available evidence on the effects of various taxes, and hence of tax structure reform, on distribution and the poor. Taxes on exports and goods consumed especially by the poor...