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Showing 1-12 of 31 Blogs
Tax official registers a female small business owner on the street
July 2023|
Blog

Helping Politicians to Break Bad Tax Habits

by Mick Moore

Politicians have many bad tax habits. These include using tax inspections to punish political opponents; ensuring…

Ethiopia - Planting Avocado Trees in Katbare - July 2011
July 2023|
Blog

Informal Taxation in Ethiopia: Typologies, Prospects, and Challenges

by Misganaw Gashaw Beza & Geremew Worku

Formal tax and non-tax revenue sources, which are estimated to account for 50 to 80% of…

Andrew Kayanu Traffic Check ATM painting
June 2023|
Blog

Roadblocks and revenues: new geographies of taxation in conflict

by Mina Radončić & Markus Geray

Checking out checkpoints The DIIS, together with the ICTD and the Centre on Armed Groups, hosted…

Man working at computer
May 2023|
Blog

The promise and limitations of information technology for tax mobilisation

by Oyebola Okunogbe, Fabrizio Santoro & Celeste Scarpini

As digital technologies continue to gain momentum in lower-income countries, tax authorities are increasingly adopting technology solutions to improve their core functions and to collect revenue more efficiently….

Two market traders walking by cars with baskets of goods over their heads
March 2023|
Blog

Ghana’s e-levy is unfair to the poor and misses its revenue target: a lesson in mobile money tax design

by Vanessa van den Boogaard, Max Gallien, Nana Akua Anyidoho & Mike Rogan

The levy’s effects – on Ghana’s public finances, its poor, mobile money usage –have been at the centre of intense and polarising public conversations, much of it without empirical basis….

Ghana: A woman carries fruit on her head as she passes a mobile money stand in the Tesano neighborhood.
February 2023|
Blog

The Ghana e-levy: Can the latest rate reduction win greater public acceptance and increase revenue?

by Awa Diouf, Alex Ampaabeng, Mary Abounabhan & Hannelore Niesten

The reduced tax rate on electronic transactions is unlikely to satisfy Ghanaians given the country’s rising inflation…

Photo of women of Takalafiya-Lapai village, Niger State, Nigeria
January 2023|
Blog

Mobile money tax: Is there a gender gap?

by Hannelore Niesten & Mary Abounabhan

Gender and tax: As Africa increasingly introduces specific taxes on digital financial services (DFS) such as mobile money, do DFS taxes exacerbate or reduce gender inequality?…

Ugandan landscape shot with a small hut in left foreground, lakes centre and right background and a yellow sign that read mobile money airtime selling in front of the hut
October 2022|
Blog

How should Africa’s digital payments be taxed?

by Philip Mader

Africa’s governments need tax revenue to fund everything from education and social welfare to paying international debts. No wonder governments are eyeing digital financial services (DFS) – a rapidly growing, highly profitable industry – for additional revenue….

Red vodafone mobile money kiosk in Ghana
October 2022|
Blog

New data on the e-levy in Ghana: unpopular tax on mobile money transfers is hitting the poor hardest

by Vanessa van den Boogaard, Max Gallien, Mike Rogan & Nana Akua Anyidoho

In Ghana, the “e-levy” has been linked to the current administration’s “Ghana Beyond Aid” strategy for reducing aid dependence….

August 2022|
Blog

How the Taliban’s more effective and ‘fairer’ tax system helped it win control of Afghanistan

by Ashley Jackson

When the Taliban dramatically gained control of Afghanistan in August 2021, they used bombs and guns to swiftly overcome state security forces. But they also had another valuable and effective weapon at their disposal: taxes….

June 2022|
Blog

How will the E-levy impact the informal sector in Ghana?

by Rhiannon McCluskey & Philipa Birago Akuoko

The Electronic Transaction Levy (E-levy), a 1.5% tax on all electronic transactions, went into effect on the 1st of May amongst considerable uncertainty and controversy….

woman-in-afghanistan
March 2022|
Blog

Why do armed groups tax? It’s not just about the money

by Vanessa van den Boogaard, Max Gallien, Ashley Jackson, Tanya Bandula-Irwin & Florian Weigand

In this blog, the authors argue that revenue is only one of several motives that explain why armed groups tax….