Tax Policy Explained: GST, Tax Morale & Wealth Taxes | Prof Rita de la Feria
22 September 2026
What makes a good tax system — and what actually encourages people and businesses to comply?
Professor Rita de la Feria joins the Tax Academy of Singapore for a wide-ranging conversation on tax policy, exploring how tax systems can balance efficiency, fairness, compliance and public trust.
Drawing on her research and policy work, Professor de la Feria discusses the design of GST and VAT systems, how technology could help make consumption taxes more progressive, and what Singapore and New Zealand have done differently in their approaches to GST and VAT. She also examines the behavioural side of taxation — including how perceptions of fairness, simplicity, trust and public services can influence whether individuals and small businesses comply with their tax obligations.
In this conversation
The discussion moves beyond technical tax rules to consider some of the wider policy and behavioural questions facing tax administrations and societies today.
Professor de la Feria explores:
What can other jurisdictions learn from Singapore and New Zealand?
Professor de la Feria highlights the broad base, single-rate approach associated with New Zealand and subsequently adopted in Singapore. In her assessment, Singapore's GST is currently among the strongest GST systems internationally, while still leaving room for improvement.
Can GST and VAT be progressive?
While VAT is often regarded as regressive, Professor de la Feria discusses how a broad-based, single-rate system combined with targeted transfers — potentially enabled by technology in real time — could improve both efficiency and fairness.
Why does tax morale matter?
Enforcement remains important, but people's willingness to pay tax is also shaped by factors including fairness, simplicity, trust in institutions and perceptions of public services. Her research suggests that these behavioural factors can also influence the compliance behaviour of small businesses through the attitudes of their owners.
How far should tax authorities go in deterring non-compliance?
Publicising audits and enforcement activity can increase perceptions of the risk of being caught, but Professor de la Feria cautions that excessive transparency may also create distrust and undesirable comparisons between taxpayers.
Can wealth and inheritance taxes reduce inequality?
Wealth taxation can be effective in addressing inequality in principle, but increased mobility creates significant practical challenges. Professor de la Feria also discusses the decline of wealth and inheritance taxes across many jurisdictions and the strong public resistance that inheritance taxation can attract.
The difficult trade-off in taxing wealth
One of the most striking parts of the conversation concerns inheritance taxation.
Professor de la Feria explains that inheritance taxes can be an effective instrument for addressing wealth inequality and may be easier to design than recurring wealth taxes. At the same time, they remain deeply unpopular in many jurisdictions because they can conflict with people's desire to preserve wealth for their children and descendants.
This creates a difficult policy tension: societies may be concerned about increasing wealth inequality while simultaneously opposing some of the instruments that could be used to address it.
An uncomfortable truth about tax
To close the conversation, Professor de la Feria reflects on what she considers one of the most important misconceptions surrounding taxation.
Public debate often focuses on the behaviour of multinational companies, wealthy individuals or others perceived to be avoiding their obligations. But a functioning tax system, she argues, also depends on the everyday choices made by individuals.
Using the simple example of whether a customer accepts a receipt from a service provider, she highlights how individual behaviour can either reinforce or undermine tax compliance.
Ultimately, the willingness to contribute to a functioning tax system and a cohesive society, she argues, “starts with us.”
About Professor Rita de la Feria
Professor Rita de la Feria is Professor of Tax Law at the University of Leeds (opens in new tab) and a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Oxford (opens in new tab). Her research focuses on tax law and policy, including VAT and GST, tax compliance and behaviour, tax fairness, and the interaction between taxation and public policy.
Her work has informed tax policy internationally, and she has advised governments on tax reform and VAT design. In 2026, she was appointed Tax Reform Advisor to the Government of Timor-Leste, and she has served on the Advisory Panel of the UK Office for Budget Responsibility since 2023.
Professor de la Feria’s research has also contributed to major tax reform debates, including Brazil’s consumption tax reform, and she is widely recognised for her work on VAT, progressive taxation and tax policy.
Watch the Podcast
Discover more conversations through The Tax Academy of Singapore Podcast, bringing together policymakers, academics, practitioners and tax leaders to explore the ideas shaping tax in Singapore, Asia and beyond.