Governance Taxes And Tax Reform In Latin America

Available on online version.

From the mid-1980s to early 1990s, Latin American tax policy provided rich lessons for other reforming countries. Meaningful innovations led also to perceptible revenue gains. Later in the 1990s, tax policies began to drift. Shining examples of fundamental reform seemed to lose their luster. Revenue in terms of GDP also stagnated, partly reflecting over-reliance on consumption taxes and neglect of taxable capacity on incomes. The stagnation has been exacerbated by excessively simplified administrative practices. Based on these developments and on the limited taxability of internationally mobile capital, the paper anticipates a likely tax structure for the new century.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of tax systems and tax reforms in a number of Latin American countries since the early 1990‘s, including Argentina and Brazil, Costa Rica and Mexico, Paraguay, Colombia, Chile and Uruguay. The authors present and discuss tax systems from a broad quantitative and historical perspective and describe the mai

Offers a comprehensive, region-wide analysis of the politics of taxation in Latin America to make reforms politically palatable and sustainable.

The Alliance for Progress was a program intended to stimulate and aid the economic development of the peoples of Latin America. It proposed that the United States and nineteen Latin American republics pool financial and technical resources to aid the peoples of all these republics in achieving better living standards, greater human dignity, and increased political freedom. Although achievement of these goals depended partially upon the availability of external assistance, it depended even more upon the ability and willingness of the Latin Americans themselves to make numerous far-reaching institutional reforms within their countries. One of the most important needs was in the area of tax reform, which had been made a quid pro quo for the twenty billion dollars promised by the United States through the program. This limitation upon the use of United States funds made obvious the need for a means of evaluating the adequacy of Latin American tax-reform efforts. In this study Raynard M. Sommerfeld presents an examination of this problem and recommends basic criteria for such evaluation. The study reviews the objectives of the Alliance for Progress, investigates the prevailing tax systems in the Latin American republics, and offers recommendations for tax-reform efforts to harmonize tax policy with the economic development goals stipulated in the Charter of Punta del Este. The author emphasizes and reiterates the fact that thorough studies of the individual countries are necessary for the planning of truly adequate tax reform. He offers the facts developed in his study as interim tools for United States Alliance for Progress agencies in evaluating Latin American tax-reform efforts, for Latin American planners seeking to guide their countries most easily on the road to economic maturity, and for all scholars, teachers, and students interested in the fields of Latin American economics, taxation, and political history.

Tax reform in Latin America during the 1980s emphasized broad-based, low-rate consumption taxes over steeply progressive income and property taxes, primarily to simplify the tax structure and facilitate tax administration. While tax reform need not necessarily raise tax-to-GDP ratios, countries that undertook tax reform experienced a higher revenue gain in terms of GDP relative to those that did not. Tax reform issues during the 1990s will include a minimum income tax, alternative corporate taxes (cash flow tax, assets tax), capturing difficult tax bases (financial intermediation, property), environment taxes, extending withholding as a taxing mechanism, and tax harmonization.

From the mid-1980s to early 1990s, Latin American tax policy provided rich lessons for other reforming countries. Meaningful innovations led also to perceptible revenue gains. Later in the 1990s, tax policies began to drift. Shining examples of fundamental reform seemed to lose their luster. Revenue in terms of GDP also stagnated, partly reflecting over-reliance on consumption taxes and neglect of taxable capacity on incomes. The stagnation has been exacerbated by excessively simplified administrative practices. Based on these developments and on the limited taxability of internationally mobile capital, the paper anticipates a likely tax structure for the new century.

A weakness of decentralization and overall tax reforms in Latin America is the lack of attention to adequate taxation at the subnational government. A reliance on shared taxes with extensive earmarking leads to weak subnational accountability and soft budget constraints. The paper explores the options for expanding subnational taxation in Latin America. A range of subnational tax instruments might be considered, but interactions between new tax assignments and the system of transfers is important from a political economy perspective.