This paper begins by comparing the 1967 Smith committee’s three volume report on Ontario taxation with the 1993 report by the Ontario Fair Tax Commission. These two very different investigations of Ontario’s tax structure, produced in two very different economic and political climates,...

This paper explores in some aspects of the complex balancing act needed to achieve economically and politically sustainable tax systems in Latin America. By a “sustainable” tax system I mean one that is sufficiently congruent with prevailing economic and political factors in a country to...

In this paper, following an introductory section setting out some salient characteristics of the country and its key institutions, we examine three aspects of Canada’s federal arrangements over the last half century. We have chosen these three examples to illustrate, first, an instance in...

This paper discusses what the growth of e-commerce means for tax policy and administration, both within countries and between them. Although the fiscal implications of such commerce as yet remain limited, the future may be different and the issues are important. The issues are first discussed...

This paper consider some aspects of how the value-added tax (VAT) has functioned to date in Ukraine, focusing on linkages between tax design, tax administration, and the structure of the economy. Two problems that have dominated much discussion of the Ukrainian VAT in recent years ? arrears and...

The aim of this paper is to review from a fiscal perspective the different models of governing structure found in metropolitan areas around the world. While there is considerable dispute in the literature as to exactly how, and how much, the design of governing institutions matters in affecting...

Recently many commentators have expressed concern about the fiscal health of Toronto and, more generally, the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Such concern is puzzling because most of the available evidence suggests that municipalities in the GTA are fiscally healthy. Over the past decade, for...

This paper is a brief review of some issues in urban finance facing China’s larger cities. It argues that at present many key aspects of the ways in which local and metropolitan governments finance infrastructure and services in China seem to be both too obscure for proper accountability and...

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'...

In this paper, we examine the issue of the incidence of central government budgets in federal countries. In Section 1, we discuss a number of reasons why the picture painted of reality by even the best fiscal flow analysis is inevitably partial and hence inherently flawed to an unknowable...