The issue of harmonizing tax incentives in the various regional economic groupings that exist in the Latin America and Caribbean region has recently again come under discussion. My aim in this paper is essentially to sketch a framework within which countries contemplating this issue may approach...

Canada has operated both a federal value-added tax (the GST) and two variants of provincial VATs for the last 15 years. In addition, several provinces have continued to operate retail sales taxes similar to those in most US states. A brief review of experience around the world with 'two-level'...

How to tax financial services is in many ways the key ‘frontier’ issue for VAT in developed countries. No convincing conceptually correct and practical solution for capturing the bulk of financial services under the VAT has yet been developed anywhere. Developing and transitional countries...

An important characteristic of many countries is that they exhibit, to greater or lesser degrees, some 'asymmetry' in the way in which different regions are treated by their intergovernmental fiscal systems. This paper explores some of the varied extents and manners in which such asymmetrical...

Subnational governments are faced with increased pressure to initiate policies to further local economic development. This paper traces the changes in the theory and practice of local development initiatives in North America. The paper uses Ontario and its municipal sector as a case study of the...

This paper is divided into three main sections. In the first section, we set out briefly the standard theoretical case for both a general equalization transfer and for the incorporation of expenditure needs as a key factor in the design of such transfers and discuss how this case may be...

In the first part of this paper we present a non-technical analysis of earmarking. We then briefly review some international experience with earmarking and its apparent results. The main new contribution of the paper is the concluding description and evaluation of the nature, efficacy, and...

The value-added tax has, in recent decades, become the most important single tax in most developing and transitional economies. This paper reviews some problems that have emerged as important as more experience has been gained with how VATs really work in many such countries and suggests some...

The application of the value-added tax to public sector bodies, non-profit organizations and charitable organizations substantially departs from full taxation in most VAT regimes around the world. The problems with the mostly exempt regime for those organizations are reviewed. Options to modify...

We argue in this paper that unless China begins to tackle more systematically the serious problems that have emerged in the finances of its various levels of sub-national government the problems to which the present unsatisfactory system give rise will over time increasingly distort resource...