12-May-2015
English
Proposals to increase environmentally related taxes are often challenged on competitiveness grounds. The concern is that value creation in certain sectors might decline domestically if a country introduces environmentally related taxes unilaterally. This paper provides evidence on the short-term competitiveness impacts of the German electricity tax introduced unilaterally in 1999.
30-April-2015
English
Improving public sector efficiency can help to meet two conflicting objectives: ensuring fiscal consolidation and maintaining room for growth-friendly spending.
29-April-2015
English
The tax on immovable property recently started to regain its former significance, but the tax yield still remains low, with slightly more than 1% of GDP and wide variation across countries.
29-April-2015
English
Colombia has engaged in a sustained process of fiscal decentralisation over the past decades. Evidence is presented that the current framework is conducive to fiscal sustainability, especially after the reforms in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
21-April-2015
English
The Colombian corporate tax system is highly complex and distortive. The effective tax burden on businesses is very high due to the combined effect of the corporate income tax, the corporate surtax introduced in 2012 (CREE), the net wealth tax on business assets and the value added tax (VAT) on fixed assets.
21-April-2015
English
Despite progress in the past decade, financial markets in Colombia remain relatively small and shallow. In particular the banking system suffers high intermediation costs, which limit constrains access to finance by households and firms.
8-April-2015
English
This review particularly recommends shifting away from income taxation to indirect taxation, for instance by raising more revenue from the Goods and Services Tax.
8-April-2015
English
The government’s current review of the federal system, focusing on both spending and tax responsibilities, is welcome, as is the “whole of government” approach to the process.
27-March-2015
English
Concerns around potential losses of competitiveness as a result of unilateral action on carbon pricing are often central for policy makers contemplating the introduction of such instruments. This paper is a review of literature on ex post empirical evaluations of the impacts of carbon prices on indicators of competitiveness as employed in the literature, including employment, output or exports, at different levels of aggregation.