[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/2237.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Reforming tax systems - the World Bank record in the 1990s

Author

Listed:
  • Barbone, Luca
  • Das-Gupta, Arindam
  • De Wulf, Luc
  • Hansson, Anna
Abstract
The main constraint on world Bank operations in tax and customs administration is the Bank's inadequate institutional framework for accumulating knowledge from loan operations, concludes this review of the Bank's record on reform of tax systems in the 1990s. The Bank's theoretical basis for reforming tax and customs administration is still rudimentary. Recent theories stress the importance of institutions that harness voice and improve transparency and contestability, but there is little evidence that reform of these factors alone makes tax administration more effective. Improvements are needed in pre-project diagnosis and project design, especially for examining accountability, administration costs, managerial autonomy, performance incentives for staff, taxpayer equity and services, and environmental factors. Pre-project work could draw more systematically on lessons from previous experience. Institutional components of project design have been biased toward organization, manpower upgrading, and procedures related to information technology. Too little attention has been paid to improving accountability, administrative cost-effectiveness, and anticorruption institution-building. Projects have made inadequate use of different kinds of performance indicators, with little uniformity in those applied. Methods used to evaluate project outcomes could be better and more uniform. Suggestions for future Bank operations: 1) doing better background work and articulating a strategy and comprehensive framework for Bank involvement in reform of tax administration. 2) Possibly supporting and strengthening regional tax administration associations, which could serve as catalysts for change. 3) Strengthening partnering and supporting private sector consultant organizations, so they can manage major components of administrative reform. 4) Institutionalizing the accumulation of knowledge about tax administration (which might require changing staff recruitment, the mix of staff skills, and training plans). The authors provide recommendations for improving project diagnosis, design, performance indicators, and appraisal, as well as a short list of projects that serve as guides to good practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Barbone, Luca & Das-Gupta, Arindam & De Wulf, Luc & Hansson, Anna, 1999. "Reforming tax systems - the World Bank record in the 1990s," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2237, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:2237
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/1999/12/30/000094946_99120905324347/Rendered/PDF/multi_page.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joel Slemrod & Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1996. "The Costs of Taxation and the Marginal Efficiency Cost of Funds," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 43(1), pages 172-198, March.
    2. Khalilzadeh-Shirazi, Javad & Shah, Anwar, 1991. "A Symposium on Tax Policy in Developing Countries: Introduction: Tax Policy Issues for the 1990s," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 5(3), pages 459-471, September.
    3. McMahon, Gary, 1997. "Applying economic analysis to technical assistance projects," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1749, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:idq:ictduk:13683 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. James Alm, 2019. "Can Indonesia Reform Its Tax System? Problems And Options," Working Papers 1906, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    3. Odd-Helge Fjeldstad, 2013. "Taxation and Development: a Review of Donor Support to Strengthen Tax Systems in Developing Countries," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2013-010, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Devesh KAPUR & Richard WEBB, 2000. "Governance-Related Conditionalities Of The International Financial Institutions," G-24 Discussion Papers 6, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
    5. Gupta, Poonam, 2015. "Generating Larger Tax Revenue in South Asia," MPRA Paper 61443, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. James Alm & Mir Ahmad Khan, 2008. "Assessing Enterprise Taxation and the Investment Climate in Pakistan," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper0810, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    7. Burak Emil & Nemec Juraj, 2016. "Main Factors Determining the Slovak Tax System Performance," NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy, Sciendo, vol. 9(2), pages 185-197, December.
    8. Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, 2006. "Pakistan: A Preliminary Assessment of the Federal Tax System," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper0624, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    9. Raballand, Gael & Marteau, Jean-François & Mjekiqi, Edmond & Cantens, Thomas, 2009. "Could a well-designed customs reforms remove the trade-off between revenue collection and trade facilitation?," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Frankfurt a.M. 2009 28, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    10. Fjeldstad, Odd-Helge, 2013. "Taxation and Development : A Review of Donor Support to Strengthen Tax Systems in Developing Countries," WIDER Working Paper Series 010, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sanz Labrador, Ismael & Sanz-Sanz, José Félix, 2013. "Política fiscal y crecimiento económico: consideraciones microeconómicas y relaciones macroeconómicas," Macroeconomía del Desarrollo 5367, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    2. Auriol, Emmanuelle & Warlters, Michael, 2012. "The marginal cost of public funds and tax reform in Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 58-72.
    3. Chen, Shawn Xiaoguang, 2017. "The effect of a fiscal squeeze on tax enforcement: Evidence from a natural experiment in China," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 62-76.
    4. Kalina Koleva, 2005. "Seeking for an optimal tax administration: the efficiency costs’ approach [A la recherche de l'administration fiscale optimale : l'approche par les coûts d'efficience]," Post-Print halshs-00195354, HAL.
    5. Parry, Ian W.H., 1999. "Tax Deductions, Consumption Distortions, and the Marginal Excess Burden of Taxation," Discussion Papers 10801, Resources for the Future.
    6. Kalina Koleva, 2005. "A la recherche de l'administration fiscale optimale : l'approche par les coûts d'efficience," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques r05050, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    7. Feldstein, Martin, 1997. "How Big Should Government Be?," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 50(2), pages 197-213, June.
    8. Slemrod, Joel, 2004. "The Economics of Corporate Tax Selfishness," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 57(4), pages 877-899, December.
    9. Lindsay Tedds, 2010. "Keeping it off the books: an empirical investigation of firms that engage in tax evasion," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(19), pages 2459-2473.
    10. Agbonyitor, Albert D. K., 1998. "Development expenditures and the local financing constraint," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1907, The World Bank.
    11. Stéphane Gauthier, 2013. "Optimal tax base with administrative fixed costs," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(6), pages 961-973, December.
    12. Eleni A. Kaditi & Elisavet I. Nitsi, 2013. "Recent Evidence on the Taxpayers’ Reporting Decision in Greece: A Quantile Regression Approach," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(2), pages 3-24.
    13. Joel Slemrod, 2007. "Cheating Ourselves: The Economics of Tax Evasion," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(1), pages 25-48, Winter.
    14. Duclos, Jean-Yves & Makdissi, Paul & Wodon, Quentin, 2005. "Poverty-dominant program reforms: the role of targeting and allocation rules," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 53-73, June.
    15. Joel Slemrod, 1998. "The Economics of Taxing the Rich," NBER Working Papers 6584, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Sebastian Eichfelder, 2011. "Steuerkomplexität als Markteintrittsbarriere?: Entscheidungswirkungen steuerlicher Planungs-und Vollzugskosten," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 63(8), pages 810-831, December.
    17. Martin Chalkley & Hugh Gravelle & Nikita Jacob & Rita Santos & Luigi Siciliani, 2022. "This paper constitutes the first and foundational output of the ESHCRU2 project 3 - Analysis of purcher-provider contracts: modelling risk sharing and incentive implications. In this project, we have ," Working Papers 187cherp, Centre for Health Economics, University of York.
    18. David Agrawal, 2012. "Games within borders: are geographically differentiated taxes optimal?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(4), pages 574-597, August.
    19. Adachi, Takanori & Fabinger, Michal, 2022. "Pass-through, welfare, and incidence under imperfect competition," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    20. Serra, Pablo, 2003. "Measuring the Performance of Chile’s Tax Administration," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 56(2), pages 373-383, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:2237. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.