Africa > Madagascar, Republic of

You are looking at 1 - 2 of 2 items for :

  • Type: Journal Issue x
Clear All Modify Search
Mario Pessoa
,
Andrew Okello
,
Artur Swistak
,
Muyangwa Muyangwa
,
Virginia Alonso-Albarran
, and
Vincent de Paul Koukpaizan
The value-added tax (VAT) has the potential to generate significant government revenue. Despite its intrinsic self-enforcement capacity, many tax administrations find it challenging to refund excess input credits, which is critical to a well-functioning VAT system. Improperly functioning VAT refund practices can have profound implications for fiscal policy and management, including inaccurate deficit measurement, spending overruns, poor budget credibility, impaired treasury operations, and arrears accumulation.This note addresses the following issues: (1) What are VAT refunds and why should they be managed properly? (2) What practices should be put in place (in tax policy, tax administration, budget and treasury management, debt, and fiscal statistics) to help manage key aspects of VAT refunds? For a refund mechanism to be credible, the tax administration must ensure that it is equipped with the strategies, processes, and abilities needed to identify VAT refund fraud. It must also be prepared to act quickly to combat such fraud/schemes.
Mr. Jean-Jacques Hallaert
In 2008, Madagascar reformed its domestic tax system. Because the excise duties and VAT regimes were reformed, the taxation of imports has changed. This paper quantifies how the reform changes the protection against imports and the fiscal revenues from taxation of imports. It shows that, even if the reform has only a limited impact on the average rate of protection, it substantially alters the structure of protection across goods. Moreover, because the reform further increases the already high rate of taxation of imports, it will also boost revenue from taxes on imports and reduce the fiscal losses from the SADC FTA.