IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/19858.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Successful tax reform: the experience of value added tax in the United Kingdom and goods and services tax in New Zealand

Author

Listed:
  • James, Simon
  • Alley, Clinton

Abstract

Tax reform provides many examples of failures - where reforms did not achieve their objectives successfully and sometimes even had to be reversed. However, value added tax (VAT) in the UK and goods and services tax (GST) in New Zealand have survived successfully for many years. This paper describes the nature and brief history of VAT and GST and then assesses the factors that contributed to their success. A key factor is the process of implementation both in allowing effective prior consultation to identify possible problems and improvements as well as preparing the taxpaying public for change. It is also important that the reform was seen to be fair, that there were gains as well as losses and the change was a net improvement. In assessing how the arguments for the introduction of VAT/GST turned out in practice, it is clear that this is a robust form of taxation and has been well able to accommodate the different political pressures in the UK and New Zealand.

Suggested Citation

  • James, Simon & Alley, Clinton, 2008. "Successful tax reform: the experience of value added tax in the United Kingdom and goods and services tax in New Zealand," MPRA Paper 19858, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:19858
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/19858/1/MPRA_paper_19858.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zodrow,George R. & Mieszkowski,Peter (ed.), 2002. "United States Tax Reform in the 21st Century," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521803830, September.
    2. Evan Davis & John Kay, 1985. "Extending the VAT base: problems and possibilities," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 6(1), pages 1-16, February.
    3. Burchell, Stuart & Clubb, Colin & Hopwood, Anthony G., 1985. "Accounting in its social context: Towards a history of value added in the United Kingdom," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 381-413, October.
    4. Alan Richmond Prest, 1980. "Value Added Taxation," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 591970, September.
    5. James, Simon & Edwards, Alison, 2008. "Developing Tax Policy in a Complex and Changing World," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 35-53, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. James, Simon, 2012. "The contribution of behavioral economics to tax reform in the United Kingdom," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 468-475.
    2. Jason L. Saving & Alan D. Viard, 2015. "Are income taxes destined to rise? the fiscal imbalance and future tax policy," Working Papers 1502, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    3. James, Simon, 2010. "Combining the contributions of behavioral economics and other social sciences in understanding taxation and tax reform," MPRA Paper 26289, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Mohamad Ali Roshidi Ahmad & Zuriadah Ismail & Hazianti Abdul Halim, 2016. "Awareness and Perception of Taxpayers towards Goods and Services Tax (GST) Implementation," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 6(11), pages 75-94, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James, Simon, 2012. "The contribution of behavioral economics to tax reform in the United Kingdom," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 468-475.
    2. Miller, Peter, 1997. "The multiplying machine," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 22(3-4), pages 355-364.
    3. Zodrow, George R, 2003. "Tax Competition and Tax Coordination in the European Union," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 10(6), pages 651-671, November.
    4. Matias Laine, 2009. "Ensuring legitimacy through rhetorical changes?," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 22(7), pages 1029-1054, September.
    5. Barrett, Michael & Cooper, David J. & Jamal, Karim, 2005. "Globalization and the coordinating of work in multinational audits," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 1-24, January.
    6. Go, Delfin S. & Kearney, Marna & Robinson, Sherman & Thierfelder, Karen, 2004. "An Analysis of South Africa's Value Added Tax," Conference papers 331274, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    7. Lambert Jerman, 2013. "La Juste Valeur : Une Comptabilite Actuarielle Pour Les Marches ... Ou Les Comptables ?," Post-Print hal-00991877, HAL.
    8. Maran, Laura & Bracci, Enrico & Funnell, Warwick, 2016. "Accounting and the management of power: Napoleon’s occupation of the commune of Ferrara (1796–1799)," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 60-78.
    9. Gillman, Max & Benk, Szilard & Csabafi, Tamas, 2023. "Supply-side economics with AS-AD in Ramsey dynamic general equilibrium," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 505-531.
    10. Ejiogu, Amanze & Ambituuni, Ambisisi & Ejiogu, Chibuzo, 2021. "Accounting for accounting’s role in the neoliberalization processes of social housing in England: A Bourdieusian perspective," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    11. Kramer, Frank, 2009. "Symmetric cash flow-taxation and cross-border investments," Bayreuth Working Papers on Finance, Accounting and Taxation (FAcT-Papers) 2009-03, University of Bayreuth, Chair of Finance and Banking.
    12. David F. Bradford, 2003. "The X Tax in the World Economy," Working Papers 109, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    13. Louis Kaplow, 2006. "Capital Levies and Transition to a Consumption Tax," NBER Working Papers 12259, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Pickhardt, Michael & Prinz, Aloys, 2014. "Behavioral dynamics of tax evasion – A survey," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 1-19.
    15. Richardson, Alan J. & Kilfoyle, Eksa, 2016. "Accounting institutions as truce: The emergence of accounting in the governance of transnational mail flows," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 32-47.
    16. Ramirez, Carlos & Zicari, Adrián, 2024. "Between a corporatist past and a globalised future: Argentina's accounting profession and the social balance sheet," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    17. Jeffrey Condon & Andrew Feltenstein & Florenz Plassman & Mark Rider & David L. Sjoquist, 2014. "A Regional Model of Growth Oriented Fiscal Policy: An Application to Georgia and Its Competitor States," The Review of Regional Studies, Southern Regional Science Association, vol. 44(2), pages 177-209, Summer.
    18. Prem Sikka, 2008. "Corporate governance: what about the workers?," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 21(7), pages 955-977, September.
    19. Alharthi, Amal & Cortese, Corinne & Moerman, Lee & Tanima, Farzana, 2022. "Surveillance capitalism in the middle east retail sector," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    20. Carlotta del Sordo & Massimo Fornasari & Rebecca L. Orelli, 2021. "Power and Discipline: The Role of Accounting in the Monte di Pietà of Ravenna between 18th and 19th Centuries," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 14(7), pages 1-93, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    value added tax; goods and services tax; tax reform;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:19858. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.