Taxes And Exports

This study has been undertaken to understand and evaluate the potential negative consequences of export taxes which are implemented by many countries today and which are not disciplined by any international agreement. This paper uses a new detailed global dataset on export taxes at the HS6 (Harmonized System 6 level) level and the MIRAGE (Modeling International Relationships in Applied General Equilibrium) global computable general equilibrium model to assess the impact of export taxes on the world economy. We find that limitations on export taxes would have worldwide effects: the average export tax on global merchandise trade was 0.48 percent in 2007, with the bulk of these taxes imposed on energy products. The removal of these taxes would increase global welfare by 0.23 percent, which is a larger figure than the expected gains from the World Trade Organization’s Doha Development Round. Both developed and emerging economies, such as China and India, would gain from such policies, even if they currently impose export taxes. Medium and small food-importing countries without market power (such as the least-developed countries) would also benefit from the elimination of export restrictions, especially during food crisis situations. Both the energy sector and the export taxes implemented by Commonwealth of Independent States countries appear to play a critical role in the overall economic impact of such a policy change. However, the fact that some countries, such as Argentina, would experience income losses due to such a policy change is a major challenge to overall positive reform in this area.

In all of the new countries formed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, other than the Baltics, the value-added taxes (VATs) adopted were “hybrid” VATs that treat CIS trade differently from trade with the rest of the world. This paper inquires whether this is appropriate. The paper concludes that it would be better if all CIS countries applied the destination principle to CIS trade as well as to trade with the rest of the world. The paper addresses the economic, administrative and revenue allocation considerations underlying this decision.

The effects on trade performance of corporate taxes and the value-added tax (VAT) continue to excite controversy but have received little empirical attention. This paper uses panel data for OECD countries from 1967 to 2003 to examine the effects of these taxes on export performance, paying particular attention to the potentially complex dynamic effects to which theory points. It finds that increased reliance on VAT revenue tends to be associated with a sharp reduction in net exports, which quickly fades. This may reflect unrelated movements in consumption, and our preferred specifications point to no trade effects of the VAT in either the short or the long run. Our results also point, however, to powerful and complex effects from the corporate tax, the pattern of which is as theory would predict from a source-based tax of this kind. Increases in corporate taxation-whether measured by revenues or the statutory rate-are associated with sharp short-run increases in net exports (consistent with induced capital flows abroad); these are then subsequently and quickly reversed (consistent with increased income from investments abroad), leaving an increase in net exports that converges to zero.