Welfare dominance and the design of excise taxation in Cote d'Ivoire

Governments in developing countries are continuously searching for new and improved tax bases. Existing methods of taxation in these countries frequently fall short of meeting acceptable criteria of efficiency, equity and administrative ease. This paper argues that there is a compelling fiscal rationale for encouraging greater reliance on taxing the consumption of electrical and telephone (ET) services. Greater emphasis on this selective commodity tax base would contribute to the achievement of taxpayer equity and would be administratively easy to impose. In addition, the efficiency characteristics of this form of taxation may also add to the attractiveness of the ET base.