Effects Of Adopting A Value Added Tax

I. Introduction -- II. How a VAT works -- III. Base of a value-added tax -- IV. Who bears the burden of a VAT? -- V. Economic effects of a VAT -- VI. Costs of administering and complying with a VAT -- VII. Direct consumption tax as an alternative to a VAT.

Has the VAT proved, as its proponents claim, an especially effective form of taxation? To address this, this paper first shows that a tax innovation-such as the introduction of a VAT- reduces the marginal cost of public funds if and only if it also leads an optimizing government to increase the tax ratio. This leads to the estimation, on a large panel, of a system of equations describing the probability of VAT adoption and the revenue impact of the VAT. The sign of the revenue impact is generally ambiguous, but most countries that have adopted a VAT seem to have gained a more effective tax instrument in doing so.

Monograph of conference papers providing a comparison of value added tax experiences and fiscal policy issues in six Western European countries - discusses transition to VAT and current structures, tax collection, income distribution effects, economic implications for consumer expenditure, consumer prices, trade, investment, etc., and lessons for the USA. References and statistical tables. List of participants. Conference held in Washington 1980 Oct.

Does the design of a tax matter for growth? Assembling a novel dataset for 30 OECD countries over the 1970-2016 period, this paper examines whether the value added tax (VAT) may have different effects on long-run growth depending on whether it is raised through the standard rate or through C-efficiency (a measure of the departure of the VAT from a perfectly enforced tax levied at a single rate on all consumption). Our key findings are twofold. First, for a given total tax revenue, a rise in the VAT, financed by a fall in income taxes, promotes growth only when the VAT is raised through C-efficiency. Second, for a given VAT revenue, a rise in Cefficiency, offset by a fall in the standard rate, also promotes growth. The implication is thus that in OECD countries broadening the VAT base through fewer reduced rates and exemptions is more conducive to higher long-run growth than a rise in the standard rate.

The feasibility of levying a value-added tax (VAT) to reduce large forecast budget deficits seems to never go away. A VAT is imposed at all levels of production on the differences between firms' sales and their purchases from all other firms. A VAT is assumed to be fully shifted forward to consumers; hence, a VAT is a type of general consumption tax. The United States, does not have a broad-based, national level consumption tax and in general, relies less on consumption taxes. This book examines the concepts, issues and experiences of the value-added tax in other countries.