Revenue and Reform considers how politicians in London tackled the many problems stemming from British expansion in India. The book illuminates the nature and purpose of British imperialism, and explains why the administration of overseas territory could no longer be left entirely in the hands of a private trading company.

Over the last several years, Vanuatu has become one of the fastest growing economies in the Pacific region driven primarily by tourism, construction, and aid inflows. The achievement of strong economic growth has also occurred on the back of improved economic policy, effective fiscal management, and improved environment for private sector development. While recent gains have been impressive, more remains to be done to sustain growth and ensure the benefits are distributed throughout the nation. The Government is now on a sound financial footing and is well placed to address key development issues. The report discusses options for responding to these needs with a view to helping guide public policy formulation in Vanuatu.

This paper studies whether revenue conditionality in Fund-supported programs had any impact on the revenue performance of 126 low- and middle-income countries during 1993-2013. The results indicate that such conditionality had a positive impact on tax revenue, with strongest improvement felt on taxes on goods and services, including the VAT. Revenue conditionality matters more for low-income countries, particularly those where revenue ratios are below the group average. Moreover, revenue conditionality appears to be more effective when targeted to a specific tax. These results hold after controlling for potential endogeneity, sample selection bias, and when revenues are adjusted for economic cycle.

This paper has identified four episodes of large and sustained revenue mobilizations in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and found common lessons from the episodes. Although there is no one-size-fits-all strategy, we can find a tax reform path suitable to Nigeria’s circumstances. Based on these cross-country experiences, this paper recommends: (i) implementing a package reform of tax administration and tax policy measures; (ii) focusing mainly on indirect tax (VAT and excise) reforms and tax incentive rationalizations; (iii) undertaking tax administration measures for improving compliance by strengthening taxpayer segmentation and automation; and (iv) launching social dialogue with key stakeholders as well as high-level political commitment.

The general review of the European Union’s budget scheduled for the years 2008 and 2009 offers a unique opportunity for reflections. Explicitly this review is “without taboos” so that also substantive changes can and should be debated. Without doubt much better budgetary systems can be imagined compared to the status quo of the EU budget which is the outcome of a path-dependent process and where many details are only understandable by taking account of the historical context of past decisions. However, even if much better systems could be designed in theory, each reform suggestion, in the end, must pass the reality check of fi- ing unanimous support from all 27 member countries. This restriction heavily l- its the universe of available reform options. Faced with that difficulty the ZEW project team embarked on the adventure to think about possible reform options for the future EU own resource system. This volume documents the conclusions. At first sight our reform suggestion may - pear to be of a rather piecemeal nature since we recommend a reform model with strong ties to the status quo. Nevertheless, we are convinced that our seemingly minor changes will set the budget on a path towards a more rational European budget which, in the end, will create leeway for financing European policies with a true European value added. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the German Federal Min- try of Finance in conducting this study.

Despite positive but mixed progress over two decades, most lower income African countries need to enhance their low tax-to-GDP ratios by mobilizing domestic resources to complement debt relief, donor aid and to achieve the MDG and poverty reduction objectives. With these goals in mind, most African countries have undertaken revenue administration reforms and from the early 1990s, 16 of 19 Anglophone Africa countries established some form of revenue authority (RA) for greater governance, financing, and workforce autonomy. Changes in governance and HR practices are evident, but has revenue administration improved overall? Capacity limitations and integrity issues persist. The introduction of VAT heralded self-assessment, but in most instances without being integrated with income tax administration. Rather, VAT administration was assigned to a separate department. Special units for large taxpayers are now common following initial challenges, but programs for other taxpayer segments are still emerging.