How to Manage Value-Added Tax Refunds
How to Manage Value-Added Tax Refunds

Author: Mario Pessoa

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2021-05-10

Total Pages: 29

ISBN-13: 1513577042

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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.

How to Combat Value-Added Tax Refund Fraud
How to Combat Value-Added Tax Refund Fraud

Author: Cedric Andrew

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2023-08-04

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13:

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A previous IMF Working Paper on value-added tax (VAT) refunds (WP/07/31, by Keen and Smith) describes the main forms of VAT noncompliance and concludes that VAT is susceptible to evasion and fraud like any other tax. This paper shows the insidious nature and extent of VAT refund fraud in selected EU countries and argues that this type of noncompliance requires tax administrations to adopt a coordinated strategy and deploy a range of countermeasures to combat this threat. Because such fraud is primarily a criminal legal issue, tackling it successfully will require cooperation, both internationally between VAT administrations and nationally between tax authorities and the judiciary. The paper’s focus is primarily on advanced economies in the context of the EU, but many of the recommendations are applicable to emerging market and developing countries. A separate IMF How to Note discusses managing VAT refunds in developing countries.

The Revenue Administration–Gap Analysis Program
The Revenue Administration–Gap Analysis Program

Author: Mr.Eric Hutton

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2017-04-07

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13: 1475583613

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The IMF Fiscal Affairs Department’s Revenue Administration Gap Analysis Program (RA-GAP) assists revenue administrations from IMF member countries in monitoring taxpayer compliance through tax gap analysis. The RA-GAP methodology for estimating the VAT gap presented in this Technical Note has some distinct advantages over commonly used methodologies. By using a value-added approach to estimating potential VAT revenues, as compared to the more traditional final consumption approach used by most countries undertaking VAT gap estimation, the RA-GAP methodology can provide VAT compliance gap estimates on a sector-by-sector basis, which assists revenue administrations to better target compliance efforts to close the gap. In addition, the RA-GAP methodology uses a unique measurement for actual VAT revenues, which isolates changes in revenue performance that might be due to cash management (e.g., delays in refunds) from those due to actual changes in taxpayer compliance.

The Value Added Tax and Growth: Design Matters
The Value Added Tax and Growth: Design Matters

Author: Mr.Santiago Acosta Ormaechea

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2019-05-07

Total Pages: 38

ISBN-13: 149831418X

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Does the design of a tax matter for growth? Assembling a novel dataset for 30 OECD countries over the 1970-2016 period, this paper examines whether the value added tax (VAT) may have different effects on long-run growth depending on whether it is raised through the standard rate or through C-efficiency (a measure of the departure of the VAT from a perfectly enforced tax levied at a single rate on all consumption). Our key findings are twofold. First, for a given total tax revenue, a rise in the VAT, financed by a fall in income taxes, promotes growth only when the VAT is raised through C-efficiency. Second, for a given VAT revenue, a rise in Cefficiency, offset by a fall in the standard rate, also promotes growth. The implication is thus that in OECD countries broadening the VAT base through fewer reduced rates and exemptions is more conducive to higher long-run growth than a rise in the standard rate.

Administering the Value-Added Tax on Imported Digital Services and Low-Value Imported Goods
Administering the Value-Added Tax on Imported Digital Services and Low-Value Imported Goods

Author: John Brondolo

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2021-05-21

Total Pages: 40

ISBN-13: 1513576488

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This technical note and manual (TNM) addresses the following questions: (1) What are the main challenges in administering the value-added tax on imported digital services and the measures that countries have introduced to address the challenges?; (2) What are the main challenges in administering the value-added tax on low-value imported goods and the measures that countries have introduced to address the challenges? ;and (3) What are the key tasks in implementing the measures for improving the administration of the value-added tax on imported digital services and low-value imported goods?

Improving VAT/GST : designing a simple and fraud-proof tax system
Improving VAT/GST : designing a simple and fraud-proof tax system

Author: Michael Lang

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 740

ISBN-13: 9789087222369

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"This book will be an interesting and valuable tool for both regulators and practitioners alike to deepen their understanding of the various tax systems and the way certain issues are solved under different regimes, in order to encourage international trade and lay the groundwork for the removal of tax obstacles and related costs in global commerce."--Extracted from publisher website on March 25, 2014.