Subnational Tax Policy Design and Administration政府间税收政策的设计和管理.docVIP

Page PAGE 30 Ebel and TaliercioTaxFeb2006Final DATE \@ M/d/yyyy 2/8/2006 TIME \@ h:mm:ss am/pm 2:20:40 PM Subnational Tax Policy Design and Administration Paper to Accompany Remarks by Robert Ebel Decentralization and Intergovernmental Fiscal Reform Seminar World Bank PRMSP/PRMEP 8-10 May, 2006 Robert D. Ebel and Robert Taliercio Research Professor, George Washington University School of Public Policy and Administration, and World Bank -Cambodia, respectively. Citation: in Motohiro Sato, ed., Fiscal Decentralization East Asia Revisited (Routledge: Tokyo, 2006). An earlier draft printed as a Special Report in Tax Notes International, March 7, 2005, pp. 919-941. 3/1/2006 Abstract A well designed intergovernmental system is key to the accomplishment of increasing the quality of life as expressed in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Whereas fiscal decentralization has many facets, there is a necessary condition that must be satisfied: subnational (local) governments must be given, and then exercise, the authority for own-revenue mobilization. This will not be an easy task; indeed, policy and administrative options are constrained by considerations as broad as the fiscal architecture of the taxing jurisdiction to those as narrow as whether there is a delivery system for sending out the tax bills. Despite all the challenges, the payoff of doing revenue decentralization well is high. The evidence is that the rich counties of the world are those that have decentralized and that a necessary condition for success is good subnational tax design and administration. I. Introduction and Context The World Development Report Entering the 21 Century finds that two forces shape the world in which development policy will be defined and implemented: globalization (the integration of country economies) and localization (self-determination and the devolution of power, WDR, 1999-2000).The report goes on to argue that these twin forces are reinforcing, a