Tax officials are at the forefront of tax administration and are the main point of interaction between revenue authorities and taxpayers. They play a crucial role in the implementation of administrative and policy measures. Yet, research on tax officials is very thin, not only in low-income countries but anywhere in the world.
This project, a collaboration with the Rwanda Revenue Authority, will investigate how tax officials’ attitudes towards taxpayers in Rwanda help (or hamper) the delivery of compliance strategies.
To this aim, we ask two inter-related questions:
- What are tax officials’ views on their role in tax administration, and what are their attitudes to enforcement?
- How do tax officials’ attitudes in interactions with taxpayers affect tax compliance?
This research will help to unpack the relationship and interaction between tax officials and taxpayers, which is at the core of successful tax administration and citizen-government relations. We expect our findings to be highly policy relevant and also to support decision-making within the Rwanda tax administration and ultimately to effectively improve taxpayer compliance.
