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Following the widening budget deficits and a rise in public debt worsened by dwindling tax revenues characterising developing countries, it has become imperative to carry out a thorough scientific inquiry on the automacity, buoyancy and revenue productivity of major tax heads such as VAT. Due to lack of capacity, a number of tax administrators in developing countries barely exploits scientific techniques to improve tax systems and tax structure. It is against this background that the author, in this book, has tested VAT revenue productivity, VAT buoyancy and elasticity before employing a number of revenue forecasting techniques that includes the Elasticity approach, Effective tax rate approach and the Exponential Smoothing technique. Amongst the author's recommendations is the insulation of the tax revenue forecasting process from political interference. The techniques proved to be more accurate than judgmental approaches currently employed by the Ministry of Finance. The results are of prime importance to policy makers, tax administrators, academic researchers and interested stakeholders such as the IMF and the World Bank.
About the author
Lincoln Dhliwayo, MSc: Studied Fiscal Policy at NUST, Bulawayo; Economics at Bindura University, Bindura. Worked as a Business Analyst at SMEDCO, a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. Currently working as a Chief Economist at Interven Africa Group headquartered in Pretoria, South Africa.
