Public Finance in the Real World: More Questions than Answers—An Appreciation of Richard Bird's Contributions to the VAT Through Collaboration

Abstract

Richard Bird’s considerable and lasting contributions to the value-added tax (VAT) field and his influence in the real world were, to a significant extent, a result of his intellectual curiosity, his discipline, and the rules of engagement in research that he followed himself and expected his collaborators to follow.

The author reviews Richard’s contributions to the field through the prism of their research collaborations in three areas: (1) sales taxes in Canada and other federal countries; (2) VAT in the international context and developing countries; and (3) spillovers from VAT that relate to other indirect taxes, VAT tax expenditures, and VAT gaps. Recurring themes in Richard’s work are the relationship between tax policy and tax administration, and the importance of understanding the institutions that produce tax policy decisions. In the final analysis, he considered research agendas as open-ended, with more questions than answers.

Keywords: Value-Added tax, VAT, Tax Policy, Developing Countries, International Monetary Fund, Tax Administration