The Economic Incidence of Replacing a Retail Sales Tax with a Value-Added Tax: Evidence from Canadian Experience.

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]