Reforming Tax Systems : Lessons from the 1990s

Abstract

World Bank-supported efforts to reform public institutions--including tax and customs administration--increasingly rely on institutional analysis. But there are no formal, generally accepted guidelines for analyzing tax systems. As a result the Bank's task managers and team leaders conduct these analyses in very different ways. The paper on which this Note is based reviewed 83 Bank-financed tax and customs reform operations in the 1990s to assess whether current approaches fall within the bounds of institutional analysis and add up to a consistent methodology. The review compiled Bank projects that supported tax administration reform, compared their diagnostic work to an emerging diagnostic model, and assessed their focus and their results.