Property Tax Reform in Senegal In recent years there has been much focus in Africa on adopting forms of taxation that enhance economic growth, but also ensure equitable, stable and sustainable sources of funding to governments. This is true for revenue mobilisation efforts that benefit both national and sub-national governments across the continent. The need…
What does tax justice mean at the local level, and how can the experiences of informal market traders be linked with broader international campaigns? This blog draws out insights from ActionAid’s experience of incorporating the demands of market traders in Nigeria into its international tax justice campaign.
Nancy Lee from the Centre for Global Development (CGD) recently published a piece arguing for a “surge in support” for domestic revenue mobilisation in low income countries and a major shift in how donor support for domestic revenue mobilisation is organised. It is an intriguing proposal, but one which is also likely to face very…
Since the turn of the millennium, the Lagos State government has made no secret of its ambitious plans to become an African ‘world class’ city, realizing its vision through borrowing as well as increased tax revenues. With 70% of the State being made up of water, land is a scarce and precious resource, so much…
The APTI in Madagascar Much attention has been paid recently to improving local government finances in Madagascar, and enhancing the participation of local governments in mobilising revenue. In October 2017 the Malagasy government invited the African Property Tax Initiative (APTI) to visit Antananarivo to explore ways in which APTI could support the authorities to reform…
Interest in wealth taxes has spiked recently due to disclosures of tax-haven abuses by the ultra-wealthy (the Panama Papers in April 2016 and the Paradise Papers in November 2017) and new empirical work on rising wealth inequality in countries around the world. These developments have led many to consider comprehensive wealth taxes as a potential…
Professor Sol Picciotto recently wrote an article which responds to a paper I wrote on the question of what is meant by “illicit financial flows” (IFFs) and in particular whether tax avoidance and tax planning by multinational enterprises should be included in the concept. As a reader of the ICTD website it is likely that…
In a recent paper, revised and published as a blog post, I argued that tax avoidance by multinationals should be included in the official definitions of illicit financial flows (IFFs). I argue that a broad definition of IFFs is essential, since they all use the offshore tax haven and secrecy system, which indeed multinationals helped…
Recent years have witnessed an accelerating push to expand access to information on the beneficial ownership of corporate entities, in an effort to bring greater transparency to multinational corporation tax strategies; identify personal tax-evading wealth held overseas; and combat global networks of criminality and corruption. There is enormous potential for these efforts to contribute to…
This piece is available in Mongolian here. Governments of mining countries are vulnerable to investors using double tax agreements (DTAs) as a means of avoiding paying taxes. DTAs are bilateral, or multilateral agreements between countries that set out which country has the right to collect tax on different types of income. Interest expense on foreign…
In the past two decades, the debate on international taxation has changed considerably. While the system is still biased against the governments of developing countries, the politics have moved in their favour. If they are able to organise and work collectively, they have scope to make the international tax system less unfair. The system for…
Nigeria is one of the fastest-growing online nations on earth, with 91.6 million Nigerians online as of mid-2017, according to the country’s Communications Commission. But taxing this digital domain is still very much in the analogue era. Akintunde Agunbiade, Tolu Dada, Emmanuel Faith, Oreniyi Adesewa, Solomon Nzere, Ikusika Bamidele, Omotoso Feranmi, Anifowose Jadesola, Adelabu Adepeju,…
