Many countries around the world are exerting effort in raising government revenues by relying mainly on taxation, apart from non-tax sources. This study presented the similarity and diversity of revenue structure and performance of each ASEAN member-country. It also looked at the tax effort and revenue effort, comparative productivity of value-added tax (VAT) and corporate income taxes, and buoyancy of tax revenue of ASEAN member-countries.
The result of the study showed that all ASEAN member-countries relied heavily on taxes as the main source of revenue, except for Brunei. Vietnam had the highest average tax and revenue effort from 2010 to 2019. Thailand yielded the highest in terms of productivity of the VAT. Malaysia outperformed the ASEAN member-countries in corporate income tax (CIT) productivity. The total tax revenue of Cambodia was considered the most responsive to changes in the national income during the period under review. The Philippines recorded the lowest average revenue effort, VAT, and CIT efficiency ratios among the observed countries despite having the highest VAT and CIT rates in the region.
With the rapid changes in each country’s economy, it is therefore imperative to continuously prepare and implement necessary actions that could address probable changes in revenue source composition and effectively boost revenue collection.