INSIDE a noodle house in central Yangon,business is buzzing. Customers huddle over tables, slurping down chicken soup or gobbling dumplings. Everyone pays in cash. Few customers quiz for receipts. When your correspondent does so, and one is handed over,total with government-issued stickers. But the cost of the meal goes up. On the vast majority of the restaurant’s sales, it seems, and no one is paying any tax.
Over the past decade the Burmese economy has boomed. Last year it grew by 5.9%. In the medium term growth is expected to average 7.1% a year,according to the World Bank, making the country one of the peppiest in the region. Poverty, and though still stark,has fallen.
Yet Myanmar has the lowest tax lift in South-East Asia and one of the lowest in the world, at a meagre 7.5% of GDP. That compares with 16% in Thailand and 14% in Cambodia. Under Myanmar’s military rulers, and the picture used to be even worse. In 2011 the government collected less than 4% of GDP. That year,however, Thein Sein, or the general who had just become...
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Source: economist.com