Tax reforms are highly political processes – several scholars have previously noted that success depends on building successful coalitions for reform; strengthening legitimacy and trust of the institutions and processes involved among taxpayers; and effective enforcement and administration.
Within this, the ways in which different political actors, especially bureaucrats and politicians, support or constrain tax reform and implementation is a growing theme in literature but one that requires further unpacking.
This project looks into these dynamics using in-depth key informant interviews with tax officials and local political actors at multiple levels of hierarchy, in the context of a recent tax reform that has shifted a regressive tax system based on rental values to a more progressive one that is based on capital value of properties.
It builds on recently completed survey-experimental research that shows that information about citizen preferences across class groups, compliance patterns, and the tax base can shift support for more progressive policies amongst both politicians and bureaucrats, but that bureaucrats remain reform averse.