MANILA, April 3 -- The World Bank on Wednesday recommended studying the country's value-added tax (VAT) exemptions as a way to enhance collection efficiency.

In a press briefing, World Bank lead economist Gonzalo Varela said the Philippines can increase tax collection through better tax administration and better design of broadening of the tax net.

"So one of the things that we see in the case of the Philippines is that for example, take VAT, there are a many exemptions that apply to VAT zero-rated sectors that introduce distortions in the system that allocate resources in a way that is not necessarily optimal, but also that reduce the capacity of the collector to collect taxes, given the tax rates," he said.

The Tax Code listed 29 tra...