Over the past decade, international attention has increasingly focused on the potential contribution of taxation to improved development outcomes. In our recent book, Taxing Africa: Coercion, Reform and Development, we offer an overview of these issues and challenges in Africa. A major objective of the book is to highlight major political questions about taxation in Africa,…
Developed countries have recently begun considering wealth taxes to raise revenue and curb rising inequality. Should developing countries follow suit? On the one hand, developing countries are often afflicted by acute income and wealth inequality (Alvaredo et al., 2018), and could thus benefit from a more progressive tax system. On the other hand, the question…
In low-income countries, small firms account for the majority of taxpayers (World Bank 2011). Yet we know little about how they navigate taxation. Existing research in the developing world focuses mostly on middle-income countries (Pomeranz 2015; Best et al. 2015; Brockmeyer and Hernandez 2018), and there is good reason to think that the tax behaviour of firms…
States are currently struggling to reach global agreement on the taxation of digital firms such as Apple and Google, suggesting that an international regime characterised by impressive coherence over a century may be beginning to fragment. While work on the politics of the international tax regime is still largely preoccupied with the US, a ‘great power’, this fragmentation largely…
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…
