30 Years of Bilateral Ties: The Special U.S.-Kazakhstan Relationship

September 2021 | Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., James Grant, and Douglas Townsend

The fifth report from ITIC’s Energy, Growth, and Security (EGS) program illustrates, analyzes, and projects the condition of U.S.-Kazakhstan relationships, including the trajectory set forth by First President Nursultan Nazarbayev upon Kazakhstan’s independence 30 years ago.

Foreign Investment in Central Asia: Actors and Drivers

December 2020 | Dr. Ariel Cohen and James Grant

This report examines the policies that have helped to fuel that growth. At the same time, Central Asia has numerous country-specific and region-wide challenges that each nation must address in order to achieve its developmental potential.

Taxing Sugary Drinks

July 2020 | Roy Bahl and Richard Bird

Abstract: Countries everywhere are considering the increasing evidence on the possible health benefits from reducing the consumption of sugary drinks — often called sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB). This paper examines the rationale for taxing sugary drinks as a way to reduce sugar consumption and considers the experience to date. That excess consumption of sugar has serious adverse health consequences and that taxing sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) may reduce the consumption of sugar are both largely supported by the evidence. What is less clear is whether SSB taxes can adequately address the problems arising from the excess consumption of sugar. If so, the question becomes how taxes might best be structured to do the job.

Post COVID-19: Building Resilience in Central Asia

June 2020 | Dr. Ariel Cohen and James Grant

This timely and edifying paper details COVID-19’s impact on Central Asia while outlining policy solutions for recovery. The main topic of this report is resilience – the ability of each nation to adapt to current crises and mitigate against future shocks.

Securing Capital Investment in Ukraine’s Grid: The Road to the Future

June 2020 | Dr. Ariel Cohen and Vladislav Inozemtsev

In this paper, Drs. Ariel Cohen and Vladislav Inozemtsev present both the challenges of introducing a Regulatory Asset Base (RAB) tariff regulation in Ukraine’s electricity sector and the benefits it may bring to the industry, consumers, and the public finances of Ukraine. [Webinar Replay]

Soft Infrastructure Development in Central Asia 2020

October 2019 | Dr. Ariel Cohen and James Grant

As readers will discover in Soft Infrastructure Development in Central Asia 2020, the effectiveness of soft infrastructure development often must be measured indirectly through statistics such as the perception of corruption rather than directly. Ultimately, the best measure of how well soft infrastructure has developed is the relative success of nations’ economies, since those with weak soft infrastructure will inevitably lag behind similarly endowed nations with stronger commitment to rule of law and a healthy, open business environment…”

China MNEs BRI Tax Workshops Report (April 2019)

In coordination with the first Belt and Road Initiative Tax Cooperation Forum (BRITACOF) meeting held in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province on 18 April 2019, and approved by the State Taxation Administration (STA), the China Chamber of International Commerce (CCOIC), China International Taxation Research Institution (CITRI), and International Tax and Investment Center (ITIC) jointly held China MNEs BRI Tax Workshops on 23-24 April 2019. Representatives from e-commerce, engineering construction, and energy extraction, were invited to discuss the major tax issues and difficulties they have encountered in the process of “going out” in BRI Countries (regions).

This report briefly introduces the basic situation for China MNEs, summarizes the common tax issues encountered by China MNEs in the BRI countries (regions), and puts forward corresponding suggestions for improvement.

Future Calling: Infrastructure Development in Central Asia

October 2018 | Dr. Ariel Cohen and James Grant

Development debates often focus on natural curses and blessings. For some countries, being landlocked is a curse resulting in difficult and costly access to/from markets. However, for the countries comprising Central Asia, most notably Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, in ancient times and today, being landlocked has been a blessing. The Silk Road puts Central Asia in the crossroads of the East-West and North-South trade routes.

Infrastructure is the key to exploiting this location and transforming it into economic development and prosperity for the people of the region. Much of the attention focuses on the hard infrastructure: pipelines, railways, highways, and communications networks. Going back to ancient times, such infrastructure allowed markets to function and grow by connecting supply and demand and maximizing the value of the region’s natural resources.

Comprehensive Tax Reform in the Philippines: Principles, History and Recommendations

September 2016 | Professor Renato E. Reside, Jr. and Hon. Prof. Lee Burns

The term “tax system” as used in this report refers to the collection of taxes that a government uses to raise revenue to support its expenditure programs. Tax systems are usually judged against the standard criteria of equity (or fairness), efficiency (or neutrality) and simplicity. Further, tax systems must raise sufficient revenue to meet the needs of government and be sufficiently flexible to deal with short-term economic fluctuations.

Globalization has put additional pressure on tax systems so that they are attractive to foreign investors. Tax systems should foster economic growth through efficient design that limits distortions and attracts foreign investment.

Review of the OECD's Working Paper on Tax Design for Inclusive Growth

August 2016 | Hafiz Choudhury

On 20 July 2016 the OECD’s Centre for Tax Policy and Administration issued a working paper entitled “Tax Design for Inclusive Economic Growth,” which examines the design features of tax systems and how they can be strengthened to support inclusive economic growth. The paper was discussed at the ministerial-level G20 Tax Symposium on 23 July, just before the meeting of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors on 23-24 July 2016.

This latest working paper follows an OECD report in 2008 entitled Tax and Economic Growth, which analyzed the impact of taxes on economic growth from an efficiency perspective. The current paper attempts a fresh assessment of the 2008 policy recommendations with a greater emphasis on equity considerations based on developments in academic literature and tax policy over the last several years.

The Impact of Selective Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverage Taxes (June 2016)

Use of targeted taxes on specific types of food and drink is on the rise around the world. Concerns over lifestyle-related Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and associated risk factors, coupled with increasing fiscal pressures, have led to growing government interest in the use of selective food and non-alcoholic beverages taxes (SFBTs). 

Whether such taxes are successful in meeting either of these outcomes depends on four main factors.

The first factor in determining the effectiveness of SFBTs is the extent to which such taxes are passed through to the prices that consumers pay. It is very difficult to predict the pass-through rate before a tax is introduced given the complexity of determinants that feed into it—including the structure of the tax, the portfolio of products it applies to, and the intensity of competition between firms in that sector. Most studies positing potential health benefits from SFBTs are based on simulations of changes in demand that would result from price changes. But such studies do not necessarily consider that, in some cases, consumers see little or no increase in prices as they are instead absorbed by producers or retailers.

Tax Administration Priorities in Emerging and Frontier Markets (October 2014)

The subject of global corporations not paying their “fair” share of taxes has been the subject of public discourse for more than three years, and international tax rules such as transfer pricing a subject for discussion in daily newspapers. There are widespread concerns that multinational enterprises (MNEs) are active participants in undermining the tax base of developed as well as developing countries, and the new Action Plan on BEPS can be seen as one outcome of this thinking. Concerted global action on addressing risks to tax bases from cross-border activity is at an unprecedented level, and the tax world is presently full of uncertainty. National action following publication of the full action plans for BEPS are very much an unknown, and this is most true of emerging and frontier markets.