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Showing 1-12 of 43 publications
August 2020

A Simplified Method for Taxing Multinationals for Developing Countries: Building on the ‘Amount B’ Proposal to Repair the Transactional Net Margin Method

Michael C. Durst

This paper considers whether the ‘Amount B’ proposal currently being negotiated in the Inclusive Framework, for the attribution of fixed remuneration for the ‘routine’ distribution and marketing activities of MNE affiliates, may offer a useful template for the re-working of the widely used ‘transactional net margin’ transfer pricing method (TNMM). The TNMM has for years…

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August 2020

Building a Social Contract? Understanding Tax Morale in Nigeria

Neil McCulloch, Tom Moerenhout & Joonseok Yang

An important part of every country’s development process is the building of a social contract in which citizens pay tax and, in turn, receive public goods and services. Evidence suggests that this is associated with the establishment of a norm of tax payment and a belief that non-payment is wrong. We exploit a new, nationally…

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July 2020

Thick claims and thin rights: Taxation and the construction of analogue property rights in Lagos

Tom Goodfellow & Olly Owen

The importance of tenure security for development and wellbeing is often reduced to questions about how titles can guarantee rights, overlooking the contested and layered nature of property rights themselves. We use the case of Lagos to analyse property rights as ‘analogue’ rather than ‘digital’ in nature – things that only exist by degree, where…

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January 2020

The Customer is King: Evidence on VAT Compliance in Tanzania

Odd-Helge Fjeldstad, Cecilia Kagoma, Ephraim Mdee, Ingrid Hoem Sjursen & Vincent Somville

Value Added Tax (VAT) has emerged as one of the main modes of raising tax revenue worldwide, but has significantly underperformed as a revenue source in African countries. To improve compliance, Tanzania has introduced Electronic Fiscal Devices (EFDs), which automatically transmit information about business transactions to the tax administration. However, VAT collection has not improved…

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July 2019

The New Politics of Global Tax Governance: Taking Stock a Decade After the Financial Crisis

Rasmus Corlin Christensen & Martin Hearson

The financial crisis of 2007–2009 is now broadly recognised as a once-in-a-generation inflection point in the history of global economic governance. It has also prompted a reconsideration of established paradigms in international political economy (IPE) scholarship. Developments in global tax governance open a window onto these ongoing changes, and in this essay we discuss four…

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May 2019

Tax, Politics, and the Social Contract in Africa

Wilson Prichard

Though traditionally thought of as the preserve of technical experts—lawyers, economists and accountants—the study of taxation has recently attracted growing attention, with mounting recognition that taxation is fundamentally political, and lies near the core of the relationship between states and citizens. The first, and most common, question about the politics of taxation is: what are…

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April 2019

Colonial Legacy, State-building and the Salience of Ethnicity in Sub-Saharan Africa

Merima Ali, Odd-Helge Fjeldstad, Boqian Jiang & Abdulaziz B Shifa

African colonial history suggests that British colonial rule may have undermined state centralisation due to legacies of ethnic segregation and stronger executive constraints. Using micro-data from anglophone and francophone countries in sub-Saharan Africa, we find that anglophone citizens are less likely to identify themselves in national terms (relative to ethnic terms). To address endogeneity concerns,…

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January 2019

Policy Implementation Under Stress: Central-Local Government Relations in Property Tax Administration in Tanzania

Odd-Helge Fjeldstad, Merima Ali & Lucas Katera

Purpose Inter-organisational cooperation in revenue collection has received limited attention in the tax administration literature. Recent experiences from Tanzania offer a unique opportunity to examine opportunities and challenges facing such cooperation between central and local government agencies in a developing country context. The administration of property taxes (PT) in Tanzania has been oscillating between decentralised…

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November 2018

China’s Challenge to International Tax Rules and the Implications for Global Economic Governance

Martin Hearson & Wilson Prichard

Twentieth century institutions of global economic governance face a profound challenge adapting to the rise of emerging markets and, especially, China’s rise. This is especially the case for the international tax regime, whose institutional home is the OECD and which is based on norms that favour capital exporting states. To understand the nature of the…

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October 2018

Informal Taxation in Sierra Leone: Magnitudes, Perceptions and Implications

Vanessa van den Boogaard, Wilson Prichard & Samuel Jibao

In low-income countries, citizens often pay ‘taxes’ that differ substantially from what is required by statute. These non-statutory taxes are central to financing both local public goods and maintaining informal governance institutions. This study captures the incidence of informal taxation and taxpayer perspectives on these payments. We find, first, that informal taxes are a prevalent…

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September 2018

Does Fiscal Decentralization Enhance Citizens’ Access to Public Services and Reduce Poverty? Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire Municipalities in a Conflict Setting

Tiangboho Sanogo

Fiscal decentralization has been implemented in many countries with an explicit objective of improving public service delivery and reduce poverty. However, its effectiveness in achieving these goals are much debated and the empirical literature has mostly focused on poverty reduction using cross-country analysis. This paper analyses whether, and how, the devolution of revenue raising responsibilities…

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August 2018

Norms, Networks, Power and Control: Understanding Informal Payments and Brokerage in Cross-Border Trade in Sierra Leone

Vanessa van den Boogaard, Wilson Prichard & Samuel Jibao

Recent research has cast light on the variety of informal payments and practices that govern the day-to-day interactions between traders and customs agents at border posts in low-income countries. Building on this literature, this paper draws on survey and qualitative evidence in an effort to explore which groups are most advantaged and disadvantaged by the…

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