Enhancing Complementarity between the IFIs and the Regional Initiatives for Tax Reform: With a Particular Reference to African and Latin American Context

Abstract

The significance of effective taxation has grown for developing countries in times of global economic downturn, as it not only facilitates capacity building of the state, but also enables stable domestic resource mobilization. Nevertheless, the lack of capacity in carrying out adequate reform in taxation by developing countries themselves calls for external assistance. Among multilateral agencies supporting tax reform, the international financial institutions (IFIs) have long been known to lead waves of structural reform through expertise and market-oriented policies. At the same time, more recently, together with the growing influence exerted by emerging economies of the South amidst actors of development cooperation, regional tax initiatives based on the principles of South-South and triangular cooperation have also been contributing to assisting reforms of tax systems in developing countries, by promoting practices reflecting the aspect of knowledge sharing and mutual assistance. Hence, based on the theory of framing and institutional complementarity, this paper has attempted to seek how the two salient multilateral frames under the discourse of supporting tax reform, represented by the IFIs and the regional tax bodies of Africa and Latin America, can complement each other for enhanced effectiveness in assistance, preventing unnecessary contestation and fragmentation. Having analyzed according to the main functions of tax reform assistance which are knowledge transfer and implementation, in general it is found that the pattern of assistance by the IFIs consisted in providing high-cost technical expertise, whereas the regional initiatives had tendency to concentrate on sharing knowledge and experience among member countries which can be characterized as low-cost. While less complementarity between the frames was shown in terms of knowledge transfer due to similar activities promoting regional partnership and capacity building, more complementarity was found concerning the implementing aspect of tax reform, attributing to the difference resulting from the IFIs standardized assistance and diversified assistance by the regional institutions. Consequently, in order to induce more effectiveness in assisting tax reform, division of labor between the two frames to enhance complementarity as well as development of platforms encompassing actors at both international and regional levels for promoting cooperation in resolving tax-related issues can be suggested.