This paper examines alternatives to the exempt VAT treatment of public bodies, non-profit organizations and charitable organizations (public service bodies). It focuses in particular on the Canadian VAT (the federal Goods and Services Tax) and its treatment of transactions involving public...

In this paper we discuss some recent critical literature on VAT in developing countries relating to its revenue productivity, its equity, and its impact on the development of the formal economy. Illustrating our argument with reference to two recent country studies (of Ukraine and Jamaica) we...

This paper examines the impact of changing the extent to which tax losses are refunded to firms in a model of imperfect competition. It proposes a particular collusive equilibrium in a repeated oligopoly with homogeneous quantity-setting firms. The industry sustains tacit collusion by using...

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...

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 face...