Dissemination Seminar on “The Welfare effect of VAT Reforms in Burkina Faso”

The seminar was about a recent research conducted by BeFinD on a tool developed to evaluate VAT reforms in Burkina Faso and examine their impact on government revenue as well as their welfare impacts across poor and rich households. For instance, estimates show that a policy that eliminates all the exemptions could increase government tax revenue from 15 to about 22% of GDP. Meanwhile, the distributional analysis shows that the poorest households would bear a welfare cost of about 10% of consumption whereas the corresponding cost for their richest counterparts is only 8% of consumption. We therefore elaborate on different strategies on the use of the additional government revenue in order to eliminate the regressive feature of the reforms.

 The seminar was attended by about 25 people. This included His Excellency Lieven De La Marche, the Belgian ambassador to Burkina Faso, who made an opening speech to the workshop. Other key attendees included Mr. Habasso Traoré, who is in charge of the Domestic Tax Division of the Department of Economic Policies and Internal Taxation at the WAEMU (West African Economic and Monetary Union) Commission; Mr. Houessou Euloge, who is the director of the Multilateral Surveillance Officer at the WAEMU Commission; researchers from Université de Ouaga II; and experts from the Institut National de la Statistique et de la Démographie (INSD).

Powerpoint