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Summary Latin America has long been characterized as a region of high income inequality. In recent years, however, many Latin American countries have seen a decrease in income inequality and poverty levels and an increase in economic mobility. Fiscal policies have played a role in achieving these results. One important explanation for changing fiscal policies is the increasing economic and political role played by the growing middle class in shaping the level and quality of collective goods and services and the types of taxes and relative tax burdens to fund these expenditures. Through a process we call “fiscal contracting,” less unequal societies may be willing to pay more in taxes for expanded, relatively universal public services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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SUMMARY Many countries are decentralizing in various ways. Decentralization is often intended at least partly to make government more efficient, flexible, and responsive. Many studies have evaluated the effects of decentralization on the provision of such services as health and education as well as on corruption, stability, and growth. Because what governments do and how well they do it is inseparably entangled with the question of how they are financed, this article outlines why and how a key element in a sound decentralization program should be to strengthen the linkage between local expenditures and local revenues-called here the Wicksellian Connection. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a non-technical discussion by an economist and lawyer, each with long international experience in taxation, of the constraints and objectives that in principle and practice shape tax policy design. After discussing the main factors traditionally taken into account by those charged with designing tax policy in any country -- such as revenue, the costs of taxation, equity and fairness, administrability, and the effects of taxation on growth and other non-fiscal objectives -- several additional important considerations associated with 'globalization' are then discussed with special attention to income taxes. The paper concludes with a brief reflection on how the 'new world tax order' in which countries must now develop their tax systems may perhaps develop over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers a simple question: Does it make a difference if people can see a tax? Underlying this question are some serious but as yet largely unexplored methodological and political issues concerning both the relationship between tax economics and tax policy and the connection between tax politics and the functioning of democracy in a complex modern society, This brief consideration of the pros and cons of changing the present treatment of the goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) in Canada raises, but does not resolve, many of these issues. Nonetheless, since hiding the tax bill does not seem a particularly attractive way to build a sustainable democratic consensus in support of fiscal equilibrium, the article concludes that there is much to be said for continuing the current general practice of quoting the GST/HST separately {tax-exclusive pricing) rather than moving to the tax-inclusive pricing found in most value-added taxes around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A decade ago, several Canadian provinces replaced the retail sales taxes with value-added taxes. This paper estimates the effects of this tax substitution on consumer prices in the reforming provinces. Consistent with theory, we find that the resulting effective tax-rate changes were shifted forward to consumers in most sectors of the economy. The overall effect on tax-inclusive consumer prices was small, albeit perhaps somewhat regressive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we argue that a more legitimate and responsive state is an essential factor for a more adequate level of tax effort in developing countries and high income countries. While at first glance giving such advice to poor countries seeking to increase their tax ratios may not seem more helpful than telling them to find oil, it is presumably more feasible for people to improve their governing institutions than to rearrange nature's bounty. Improving corruption, voice and accountability may not take longer nor be necessarily more difficult than changing the opportunities for tax handles and economic structure. The paper also shows that high income countries have also the potential of improving their tax performance through improving their institutions. The key contribution of this paper is to extend the conventional model of tax effort by showing that not only do supply factors matter, but that demand factors such as corruption, voice and accountability also determine tax effort to a significant extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the role of the personal income tax as an instrument for redistributing income. Inequality has increased in recent years in both developed and developing countries. Tax experts, like others, have focused on how taxes may reduce this growing inequality of income and wealth. In developed countries, the income tax, and especially the personal income tax, has long been viewed as the primary instrument for redistributing income. The article considers the relative success of developed and developing countries in using tax systems to redistribute income.

Copyright of Canadian Public Administration is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Decentralization is an increasingly fashionable theme in the development literature. This paper attempts to distil from experience in a number of countries some basic considerations that should be taken into account by would-be decentralizers with respect to intergovernmental fiscal relations and local taxation. After a brief review of the nature of the problem and the economic case for decentralization, four basic principles of reform--transparency, stability, flexibility, and incrementalism--are put forward as useful guidelines to the restructuring of governmental finances and functions that seem needed in many developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the limitations of global studies of fiscal incidence. The first section of the article outlines some of the main reasons for considering global studies of fiscal incidence in their present form to be of little use. Then, the author argued that even if such studies could be satisfactorily carried out they would be of much less value than many seem to think. According to the author, the principal policy-relevant reasons for such studies can be satisfied by less ambitious but more feasible exercises which, in effect, enable economists to say "less" with more conviction, rather than "more" with great doubts. It has been found that some of the other problems with global incidence studies are related to the treatment of time. Renowned economist Alan Prest has pointed out that the apparent inconsistency of the common assumption that personal taxes are not shifted implies that factor supplies are perfectly inelastic. Another assumption is that indirect taxes are fully shifted forward, which implies that factor supplies are perfectly elastic.

Examines the effect of income redistribution on the level of capital formation through taxation in Columbia. Distribution of income of natural persons in the labor force in 1961; Wage and salary income as a proportion of total personal income; Sources of investment finance from 1950-1966; Incidence of Colombian taxes in 1961; Incidence of the Colombian fiscal system in 1963.