The Impact of Value Added Tax on Trade and Comparison of This Effect in Oil Exporting and Non-oil Exporting Countries

Moving countries toward trade development has led to a reduction in direct trade taxes and replaced them with domestic taxes such as value added tax (VAT). The use of value added tax with a view to curbing trade restrictions has had an important bearing on its impact on trade. There are different views on the impact of VAT on trade which often do not include the same results. There are few empirical studies in this regard that are limited in scope, too. Hence, in this paper, the impact of value added tax on trade in 52 countries, including the 10 oil exporting countries and 42 non-oil exporting countries during the period 2000-2015, has been studied. For this purpose, two models of exports and trade are estimated for the data of selected countries. The results indicate that value added tax has a negative and significant effect on trade and exports in both countries. But its negative impact on oil exporting countries is higher than non-exporting countries.