Other Public Sector Study
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Publication
Using New Data to Support Tax Treaty Negotiation
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-07-12)This paper introduces the new Tax Treaties Explorer dataset, developed with support from the World Bank and the G-24, and illustrates its use for research by tax treaty negotiators, policy makers, and researchers. The new dataset provides a rich source of data to reexamine existing tax treaty policy, inform negotiation positions, and assess treaty networks. For the first time, it provides a tool to analyze trends in the content of tax treaties, across individual agreements, over time, and between countries. To illustrate the value of such an approach, we replicate a study by Barthel, Busse, and Neumayer (2009), which found a positive association between the presence of a tax treaty and the bilateral stock of FDI. We show that this effect is mainly driven by the withholding tax rates in the treaty rather than by other provisions affecting taxing rights such as permanent establishment. If the outcomes of this proof-of-concept replication are borne out in future research, this would suggest that negotiators can seek the maximum protection of source taxing rights in other parts of the treaty, knowing that this is unlikely to dilute investment-promoting impacts. -
Publication
COVID-19: Tax Policy and Revenue Administration Implications
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-06-22)This note brings together current thinking among global and regional teams on governance and institutional approaches to dealing with COVID-19. With a focus on tax policy and revenue administrations, it presents governance and institutional reforms that could support revenue administration responses to the pandemic.1 COVID-19 has brought about a new normal in which work practices should change. Shocks usually trigger responses, and a productive response here will be to automate tax and customs services over the medium term and to massively accelerate the use of digital and virtual technologies. -
Publication
Ghana: Enhancing Revenue Mobilization Through Improved Tax Compliance and Administrative Systems
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-11-13)Ghana’s tax collection is low compared with other lower middle-income countries. Non-compliance of tax payments is an urgent issue in Ghana, as the government has been suffering from a widening fiscal deficit and a rising debt burden. Learning from experiences in other countries, this report proposes potential interventions that could improve tax compliance. -
Publication
Guinea - Opportunities for Enhanced Domestic Revenue Mobilization: Value-Added Tax and Excise Taxes
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-05-01)Revenue mobilization is a key constraint to economic development in the Republic of Guinea. The government’s five-year development plan (2016-2020) aims at fostering higher and more inclusive growth through public investments that require financing beyond current fiscal capacity. In this context, Guinea is seeking to efficiently raise additional domestic revenues and external investment financing. Development partners are supporting Guinea with technical assistance for revenue mobilization. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union are supporting authorities with direct tax policy, non-tax revenue, and administration issues. The objective of this report is to shed light on indirect taxes, particularly value-added tax (VAT) and excise taxes. The report provides an overview of the main features of tax policy and administration in Guinea, followed by a more detailed analysis of VAT and excise taxes. The focus on indirect taxation is a result of both its significant revenue potential and coordination with other development partners. The analysis presented fills an important gap in the understanding of how Guinea can increase its tax revenues. On VAT, the study finds that addressing policy and administrative constraints can mobilize additional revenues while improving the business climate. On excise taxation, the study finds that existing excise rates are unevenly applied, with scope for raising rates in the future. To systematically address its revenue challenges across all tax types, Guinea should also consider development of a medium-term revenue strategy (MTRS). The report is structured as follows: in the first section, an overview of the evolution and composition of domestic revenues in Guinea is presented. In the second section, VAT is analyzed. The final section reviews excise tax policy and its implementation on international goods and domestic goods. -
Publication
Improving Public Sector Performance: Through Innovation and Inter-Agency Coordination
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-10)This report is an inaugural issue in a new series that aims to offer a fresh look at how developing countries are overcoming persistent problems in public sector management. Significant improvements in public sector performance are being evidenced across the developing world today, as government officials and political leaders find new and innovative ways to tackle long-standing challenges. Part I of this report demonstrates that public sector performance is being pursued diligently and successfully across a variety of country contexts, including in low-income environments. Through surveying its governance specialists from around the globe, the World Bank has assembled a collection of 15 cases that showcase how lessons from global experience are being adapted and applied in practice. The report also explores common success drivers that appear in each of the cases. Part II focuses on a special, cross-cutting topic that is critical to public sector performance -- policy and inter-agency coordination. As the responsibilities of government have grown in volume and complexity, policy and program coordination has become ever more challenging, and the stakes have never been higher. Enhancing coordination will depend not only on the adopted formal institutional mechanisms, but also on their interplay with the broader institutional environment and with other processes that influence coordination. -
Publication
Assessment of Tax Compliance Costs for Businesses in the Kyrgyz Republic
(World Bank, Bishkek, 2017-12)The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institute focused on supporting the private sector in emerging economies. Through its work with more than 2,000 companies worldwide, IFC mobilizes capital, expertise, and influence to create markets and opportunities for developing countries. The objective of the IFC Central Asia Tax Project is to improve compliance with mandatory requirements of tax legislation through increased transparency and simplification of tax administration procedures. Simplification of tax accounting procedures will reduce costs of tax compliance, lessen the administrative burden on small and medium businesses, reduce barriers to entry into the formal economy, and serve as a driver for economic growth in the Kyrgyz Republic. The key element of reforms is an immediate assessment of their efficiency and possibility for adjustments based on assessment results. With this view, IFC, through its technical assistance tax reforms projects, has conducted a series of studies, which help monitor the tax system reforming processes in the Kyrgyz Republic. The main goal of the studies was a periodic assessment of time and costs to taxpayers in the Kyrgyz Republic in complying with the mandatory requirements of the tax legislation. Equitable intervals of measurements allowed an immediate assessment of the impact of implemented tax reforms on the cost of taxpayers to comply with tax legislation. In addition, actual data on the tax system status helped elaborate concise recommendations for the Government with the focus on elimination of identified issues and reduction of the tax administration costs to businesses. This report outlines the results of all three rounds of business environment surveys in the area of tax regulation; it includes the estimates of tax accounting costs of taxpayers in the Kyrgyz Republic in 2012, 2014, and 2016. -
Publication
Assessment of Tax Compliance Costs for Businesses in the Republic of Tajikistan
(Washington, DC, 2017-12)The principal outcome of the tax reform implemented in recent years in the Republic of Tajikistan is the reduction of administrative burden on the private sector associated with compliance with tax legislation through simplified tax procedures and less time required to pass these procedures. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institute, which is focused on support to the private sector in emerging economies. The objective of the IFC Central Asia Tax Project is to improve compliance with mandatory requirements of tax legislation through better transparency and simplification of tax administration procedures. IFC through its technical assistance tax reforms projects, has conducted a series of studies, which allow to monitor the tax system reforming processes in Tajikistan. The main goal of the studies was a periodic assessment of time and costs of taxpayers in Tajikistan to comply with the mandatory requirements of the tax legislation. As part of the study, three rounds of measurements were performed, where the tax administration costs of the Tajik taxpayers were assessed at a regular time span - in 2012, 2014, and 2016. This report presents the results of all three rounds of business environment surveys in the area of tax regulation. It includes the estimates of tax accounting costs of taxpayers in Tajikistan in 2012, 2014, and 2016. -
Publication
Dominican Republic Gearing Up for a More Efficient Tax System: An Assessment of Tax Efficiency, a Cost-Benefit Analysis of Tax Expenditures, and an Exploration of Labor Informality and its Tax Implications
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-06)This study discusses options how to increase the Dominican Republic tax revenue and attempts to identify priority areas for efficiency-enhancing reforms. A 2016 World Bank report on Dominican fiscal policy found that the country's tax expenditures were poorly targeted and regressively distributed, benefitting the wealthy more than the poor, and imposed considerable fiscal and economic costs. The report also showed that the tax contribution of the informal sector is extremely low, despite the fact that informal workers account for roughly half of the active labor force. As the new government prepares the ‘fiscal pact' first described in the country's development strategy 2030, policymakers will require a more thorough understanding of these issues and their fiscal, economic, and distributional implications. Thus, building on past analytical work, the present study focuses on two priority areas: tax efficiency and labor informality. Chapter One reveals that the DR's strong and sustained economic growth in recent years has had only a modest impact on revenues' efficiency from value-added tax, corporate income tax, personal income tax, and minor taxes. An analysis of tax-collection efficiency reveals several feasible options for boosting tax revenues. Chapter Two explores the characteristics, correlates, and effects of widespread labor informality in the DR. Identifying the correlates of informality yield important implications for promoting formalization and thereby broadening the income-tax base. -
Publication
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia: Evaluation of MDGs Specific Purpose Grant to Regions
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-03-29)Ethiopia is a highly decentralized country. Presently, sub-national government taxes and revenues account for about 28 percent of general taxes and revenues, and sub-national expenditures amount to 51 percent of general government expenditures. The ensuing vertical mismatch is bridged by grants from the Federal government to the regions. Presently, these grants account for 57 percent of sub-national expenditures1. For many years, these grants consisted mostly of a block grant (the Federal General Purpose Grant) given without any strings attached, which means the regions could use it as they wished. The rest of the report is organized as follows. Section two provides the policy context that is the information, data, evolutions, etc. specific to Ethiopia, which are necessary to understand and interpret the MDGs grant policy. Section three present and discusses the policy content that is the components of the policy previously identified. Section four is a policy assessment, which utilizes the evaluation framework proposed above to analyze the relationships between the various components of the policy, and discuss its efficiency, its effectiveness and its success. Section five is a conclusion that summarizes the analysis, and attempts, prudently and modestly, to outline some potential avenues for future action.