Africa > Madagascar, Republic of

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Jean-François Wen
Turnover taxes are prevalent in developing countries as a simple form of presumptive taxation of business income. Such simplified tax regimes can reduce the relatively high compliance costs of micro and small enterprises, which might otherwise discourage entrepreneurs from formalizing their activities and paying taxes. The note addresses design issues for a turnover tax regime—which taxes it replaces, what the criteria are for eligibility, how to determine the optimal threshold, and how to set the tax rate. A key observation is that, although low turnover tax rates may incite larger firms to artificially reduce their sales, the rate should also not be so high as to discourage formalization of activities. A table of tax rates and turnover thresholds observed internationally is provided. The note concludes by suggesting analytical steps to guide practitioners in designing turnover tax regimes.
Ghislain Afavi
,
Coffi Agossou
,
Mokhtar Benlamine
,
Ialy Rasoamanana
,
Nombàna Razafinisoa
, and
Ms. Veronique Salins
This chapter investigates the link between informality and growth in Madagascar and aims for a better understanding of the informal sector. It provides an analysis of the characteristics of informal production units and informal employment. Findings suggest that informality is a key feature of economic activity in Madagascar, and that informal production units are the main driver of employment with a deep concentration around self-employment. Overall, informality is associated with a lack of awareness of administrative procedures and the complexity and cost of tax and regulatory measures. The informal sector’s Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth is more stable and higher on average than the formal sector TFP.
International Monetary Fund. Fiscal Affairs Dept.
Madagascar is exposed to a multitude of climate hazards such as tropical cyclones, droughts, and floods, which cause significant damage to key sectors, thereby undermining development efforts. Madagascar continues to develop strategies and policies for addressing climate change, including commitments under the Nationally Determined Contribution, natural disaster risk management, adaptation measures, and ongoing public financial management and public investment management reforms. Resilience to climate shocks and natural disasters can only be achieved through a combination of climate measures, public investment efficiency measures and public investments in both human capital and resilient infrastructure.
International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, & Review Department
This management implementation plan (MIP) proposes actions in response to the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO)’s report on growth and adjustment in IMF-supported programs. The full implementation of the MIP package will help ensure that, at a time when many countries face strong headwinds, IMF-supported programs not only deliver necessary adjustment to address balance of payments needs but also pay greater attention to their growth effects. While the policy-related deliverables are already incorporated into current departmental work plans and budgets, the operational implementation of these recommendations may require mobilizing additional resources.
International Monetary Fund. Statistics Dept.
At the request of the Ministry of the Economy and Finance (Ministère de l’Économie et des Finances (MEF)) and in consultation with the African Department (AFR) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the IMF Statistics Department (STA) carried out a remote mission on government finance statistics (GFS) from November 29–December 10, 2021. The purpose of the mission was to continue to support the Malagasy authorities in their work to adopt international standards of the Government Finance Statistics Manual 2014 (GFSM 2014) for their GFS. The mission would like to thank the Research Directorate (Direction des Études (DE)) of the Directorate General of the Treasury (Direction Générale du Trésor (DGT)) for its close collaboration and more specifically for the timely communication of the required documents, which was essential to the success of the mission given the remote working conditions.
Yasmin Alem
and
Jacinta Bernadette Shirakawa
Based on internal data, this paper finds that the capacity development program of the IMF’s Statistics Department has prioritized technical assistance and training to fragile and conflict-affected states. These interventions have yielded only slightly weaker results in fragile states than in other states. However, capacity development is constantly needed to make up for the dissipation of progress resulting from insufficient resources that fragile and conflict-affected states allocate to the statistical function, inadequate inter-agency coordination, and the pervasive impact of shocks exogenous to the statistical system. Greater coordination with other capacity development providers and within the IMF can help partially overcome low absorptive capacity in fragile states. Statistical capacity development is more effective when it is tailored to countries’ level of fragility.
Alassane Drabo
The three main financial inflows to developing countries have largely increased during the last two decades, despite the large debate in the literature regarding their effects on economic growth which is not yet clear-cut. An emerging literature investigates the dependence of their effects on some country characteristics such as human and physical capital constraint, macroeconomic policy and institutional capacity. This paper extends the literature by arguing that climate shocks may undermine the effect of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), official development assistance (ODA) and migrants’ remittances on economic expansion. Based on neoclassical growth framework, the theoretical model indicates that FDI, ODA, and remittances improve economic growth, and the size of the effect increases with good absorptive capacity. However, climate shocks reduce this positive effect of financial flows in developing countries. Using a sample of low and middle-income countries from 1995 to 2018, the empirical investigation confirms the theoretical conclusions. Developing countries should build strong resilience to climate change. Actions are also needed at global level to reduce greenhouse gases emissions, and build strong structural resilience to climate shocks especially in developing countries.
International Monetary Fund
This paper proposes a package of policy reforms and a funding strategy to ensure that the Fund has the capacity to respond flexibly to LICs’ needs during the pandemic and recovery. The key policy reforms proposed include: • raising the normal annual/cumulative limits on access to PRGT resources to 145/435 percent of quota, the same thresholds for normal access in the GRA; • eliminating the hard limits on exceptional access (EA) to PRGT resources for the poorest LICs, enabling them to obtain all financing on concessional terms if the EA criteria are met; • changes to the framework for blending concessional and non-concessional resources to make it more robust and less complex; • stronger safeguards to address concerns regarding debt sustainability and capacity to repay the Fund; and • retaining zero interest rates on PRGT loans, consistent with the established rules for setting these interest rates.
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.
Johannes Emmerling
,
Davide Furceri
,
Francisco Líbano Monteiro
,
Mr. Prakash Loungani
,
Mr. Jonathan David Ostry
,
Pietro Pizzuto
, and
Massimo Tavoni
COVID-19 has had a disruptive economic impact in 2020, but how long its impact will persist remains unclear. We offer a prognosis based on an analysis of the effects of five previous major epidemics in this century. We find that these pandemics led to significant and persistent reductions in disposable income, along with increases in unemployment, income inequality and public debt-to-GDP ratios. Energy use and CO2 emissions dropped, but mostly because of the persistent decline in the level of economic activity rather than structural changes in the energy sector. Applying our empirical estimates to project the impact of COVID-19, we foresee significant scarring in economic performance and income distribution through 2025, which be associated with an increase in poverty of about 75 million people. Policy responses more effective than those in the past would be required to forestall these outcomes.