Fiscal Adjustment for Sustainable Growth in Belize

Date
Sep 2006
This review of the fiscal adjustment in Belize focuses on the revenue requirement of the Government in the short term as well as the tax reform measures that are needed in order to meet the longer term revenue requirements of the public sector. The study examines the country's tax design, its administration and its effectiveness in revenue mobilization. The authors make a number of suggestions that would serve to fine tune the tax system and make it more robust as an instrument of revenue collection and also to reduce some of the economic distortions that now exist. In carrying out the revenue estimates below, we initially assume that there is no behavioral response to the change in the tax rates. Once a complete set of revenue estimates is developed, they introduce the effect of the behavioral responses to relative price changes in our development of a second set of revenue projections.