The ICTD Annual Centre Meeting on tax exemptions concluded with a presentation by Professor Richard Bird. Drawing on his vast experience, Professor Bird summarised key practical messages about tax exemptions, while challenging the audience to move beyond the stale debates that have been repeated for almost four decades. His key message on systems of tax…
For people living in the Eastern villages of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), it is often impossible to carry out daily activities without being taxed. But can an ‘all-pervasive system of taxation’ have an upside?” Katherine Haver discusses how taxation affects people’s livelihoods. Read more…
In August of this year, the UK Parliament’s International Development Select Committee published a report on its investigations into DFID’s work on tax and development. The process was in some ways impressive. A number of MPs on the Committee showed a real interest in the topic. A visit to Zambia brought them right up…
I thought not. And, by the way, formulary apportionment is not directly connected to children’s milk food formulae – although more of it in our lives should ensure that more under-nourished babies are better fed. Formulary apportionment is all about taxation of transnational corporations. It is very complex. But the principles are quite straightforward. The reality of transnational corporations’…
Trust in local government authorities and social influence affects people’s decision to pay for local services. It is widely believed that non-payment of public services by citizens is due to their inability to pay as a result of poverty and other socio-economic conditions. However, an analysis of two surveys conducted in South Africa, shows…
Capital flight by high net worth individuals is a serious problem for many developing countries. Although the quantification of offshore wealth holdings and the associated overall revenue losses is difficult, they are generally considered to be sizable. While not necessarily all capital relocations from developing economies are illegal and motivated by tax purposes, many offshore…
In recent years, the literature has brought forward interesting insights and stimulating new research activities, but many of the central questions still remain unanswered. For some time, the policy and academic debate has treated tax haven economies (as defined by conventional tax haven lists) as a homogenous group of countries, implicitly suggesting that they are…
Across the world, tax effort has been increasingly based on regressive consumption and payroll taxes, which depress consumption and employment. The current tax system is obsolete. It under-taxes financial wealth and transactions as well as negative externalities such as pollution and short-term capital flows, while simultaneously over-taxing the manufacturing sector, public services and, in…
In November of last year I visited Colombo, Sri Lanka, for a conference on tax and development. It was organised by the Institute of Policy Studies, together with the International Centre for Tax and Development at IDS. After the conference, my friend Anjali asked me about what had been discussed, and what it meant to her as a citizen of…
We have just launched a research report on ‘Who drives economic reform in Vietnam’s provinces?’. Vietnam continues to surprise the world with the speed and depth of its economic transformation. Our project finds that the decentralisation of economic power from central to provincial government has contributed to this success. It explores who drives the economic reform…
The OECD’s Task Force on Tax and Development is neither the most streamlined of these affiliates – it has more than 100 members – nor the one closest to the centre of power. It to a large degree represents the interests of non-member developing countries in this rich country club. But the meetings of the…
Yes, it sounds very tedious. Accounting does not interest most people concerned with development. We may agree it is necessary, but we do not think it is very interesting. And most of us do not understand it. How many of us can really read a balance sheet, or understand an income statement? The accounts of…
