Taxes are a crucial policy issue, especially in developing countries. Just recently, proposals to raise middle-class taxes toppled the Bolivian government, and plans to extend or increase the value-added tax caused political unrest in Ecuador and Mexico. Despite the impact of tax policy on developing countries, a comprehensive study has yet to be written. Treating Argentina, Brazil, India, Kenya, Korea, and Russia as key case studies, this volume outlines the major aspects of current tax codes and explores their economic and political implications. Examples of both the poorest and wealthiest developing countries, Argentina, Brazil, India, Kenya, Korea, and Russia uniquely demonstrate the diverse fiscal problems of tax reform. Each economy relies heavily on indirect and corporate income taxes, though recently some have reduced their tariff rates and have switched from excise to value-added taxes. There is a large, informal economy in most of these countries, and tax evasion by firms is a significant concern. As a result, tax revenue remains low, even though rates are as high as those in developed economies. Also, unconventional methods to collect revenue have been implemented, including bank debit taxes, state ownership of firms, and implicit taxes on individuals in the informal sector. Exploring these and other concerns, as well as changes in tax law, administration, and fiscal pressures, this comprehensive anthology clarifies the current landscape of tax administration and the economic future of the world's poorer economies.

There is a widespread concern that, in some parts of the world, governments are unable to exercise effective authority. When governments fail, more sinister forces thrive: warlords, arms smugglers, narcotics enterprises, kidnap gangs, terrorist networks, armed militias. Why do governments fail? This book explores an old idea that has returned to prominence: that authority, effectiveness, accountability and responsiveness is closely related to the ways in which governments are financed. It matters that governments tax their citizens rather than live from oil revenues and foreign aid, and it matters how they tax them. Taxation stimulates demands for representation, and an effective revenue authority is the central pillar of state capacity. Using case studies from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America, this book presents and evaluates these arguments, updates theories derived from European history in the light of conditions in contemporary poorer countries, and draws conclusions for policy-makers.

Selection of studies relating to taxation in developing countries. The papers are organized under the following subjects: approaches to development taxation, lessons from experience, taxation and incentives, problems in direct taxation, the reform of indirect taxation, the role of local taxes, tax administration and tax policy. Contributors: Carl S. Shoup, Vito Tanzi, Richard Goode, Charles E. McLure, Richard Bird, Oliver Oldman, Sijbren Cnossen and many others.

Around the world, there are concerns that many tax codes are biased against women, and that contemporary tax reforms tend to increase the incidence of taxation on the poorest women while failing to generate enough revenue to fund the programs needed to improve these women's lives. Because taxes are the key source of revenue governments themselves raise, understanding the nature and composition of taxation and current tax reform efforts is key to reducing poverty, providing sufficient revenue for public expenditure, and achieving social justice. This is the first book to systematically examine gender and taxation within and across countries at different levels of development. It presents original research on the gender dimensions of personal income taxes, and value-added, excise, and fuel taxes in Argentina, Ghana, India, Mexico, Morocco, South Africa, Uganda and the United Kingdom. This book will be of interest to postgraduates and researchers studying Public Finance, International Economics, Development Studies, Gender Studies, and International Relations, among other disciplines.

The contributions in this book analyse the policy challenges of taxation in developing countries, including corruption, tax evasion, and ineffective political structures. After a comprehensive overview, each chapter uses modern empirical methods to study a single critical issue essential to understanding the effects of taxes on development. Topics addressed include the effect of taxation on foreign direct investment; forms of corruption, tax evasion, and tax avoidance that are specific to developing countries; and issues related to political structure, including the negative effects of fiscal decentralization on the effectiveness of developmental aid and the relationship between democracy and taxation in Asian, Latin American, and European Union countries that have recently experienced both political and economic transitions.

Written by experts in the field, this book uses the modern theory of public finance to analyze tax and pricing policy in developing countries.

This volume examines the tax systems of some twenty countries to determine whether their tax laws are used to support growth and development across borders in lower-income and poor countries. Given the critical economic development needs of poorer countries and the importance of stability in these regions to the security of populations throughout the world, the use of a country’s tax laws to support investment in the developing world gains crucial significance. This book explores whether international standards promoting the fundamental values of the major tax systems of the world accommodate incentives for these nations. In addition, it analyzes the way in which adoption of principles by higher income nations to protect their own revenue bases has a spill-over effect, impairing the ability of developing countries to sustain their economies. Following an introduction that synthesizes worldwide trends, the volume contains separate chapters for a variety of countries detailing the underlying goals and values of each system and the way in which the decision to employ (or not employ) incentives accommodates those ends. The chapters include reports for: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Maldives, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States, and Venezuela. The volume memorializes the work of the General Reporter and National Reporters at the Taxation and Development session of the 19th Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law held in July, 2014, in Vienna, Austria.