Taxing better to boost growth: Insights from the IMF’s Fiscal Monitor

A new analytical chapter of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) “Fiscal Monitor” examines how countries can tax better to support growth without sacrificing revenue. The chapter shows how poorly designed taxes and weak implementation can distort firms’ production, investment, financing, and innovation, while also discouraging work. Drawing on new cross-country, firm-level, and model-based evidence, it quantifies the economic gains from reducing these distortions and identifies practical reform priorities—from restoring VAT neutrality and improving profit taxation and the design of tax incentives to strengthening work incentives and tax administration.

On October 5, the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and the IMF will host an event to discuss insights from the IMF’s “Fiscal Monitor”. Shafik Hebous, deputy division chief in the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department, will present the new chapter. A panel of tax policy experts will follow to share reactions and discuss how the lessons learned translate into reform priorities across countries with institutional capacities.

Online viewers can submit questions in advance via e-mail to [email protected].