In recent years, policymakers across the globe have become increasingly interested in not only the revenue consequences of tax policies but also their distributional impacts: that is, their impacts on different segments of the population. Such evidence can promote a more equitable and...

Goods and Services Tax (GST) was implemented in India in July 2017, after four decades of protracted deliberations amid critical socio-economic and political challenges. GST is a comprehensive multistage value added tax (VAT) on goods and services where both central and state governments share...

In most member states of the European Union (EU), universal postal services provided by the incumbent operator are exempt from value added taxes (VAT) on the grounds that they are the “public postal service.” Other postal service providers have to charge VAT at the standard rate. The paper...

As is broadly recognized, the straightforward application of the Diamond-Mirrlees (1971) production efficiency theorem implies that when lump-sum taxation is not available, then it is optimal for the government in a small open economy to rely on taxes on the net demand of households rather than...

Newspapers are two-sided platforms that sell their product both to readers and advertisers. Media firms in general, and newspapers in particular, are considered important providers of information, culture and language in most countries. Newspapers are therefore given preferential tax treatment....

In West Africa, the Value Added Tax (VAT) policy consists of a uniform tax rate, but several items consumed by rich and poor households, are exempted. We provide an optimal tax framework to reflect on the welfare effects of such a tariff structure, in the context of current debates on domestic...

The recent crisis has revealed large differences in external competitiveness between euro area member countries. Since nominal exchange rate devaluation is not an option for members of a currency area, governments in troubled member countries have been considering so-called fiscal devaluation,...

Some taxes, most notably FICA, apply to a base that is neither tax inclusive nor tax exclusive. This note provides formulas for expressing tax rates on hybrid tax bases in tax-inclusive and tax-exclusive terms, and demonstrates that obligations under the Self Employment Contributions Act fail to...