Taxing Africa is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the crucial debates around taxation and development in Africa. The book offers a fascinating insight into the key issues facing policy makers, tax collectors, civil society activists and donors working to increase revenues to finance sustainable development in Africa. From the colonial roots of taxation on…
Read moreThis brief examines the experience of Uganda in increasing tax compliance from wealthy individuals, compares its approach to that of other countries’ tax authorities, and draws lessons that they can learn from each other.
Read moreThis paper examines the experience of Uganda in increasing tax compliance from wealthy individuals, compares its approach to that of other countries’ tax authorities, and draws lessons that they can learn from each other.
Read moreIt is widely believed that the governments of many low-income countries, and especially the relatively poor performers, should be aiming to increase the proportion of GDP they raise in tax revenue. There are risks in emphasising increasing revenue at the expense of other objectives. Governments also need to be concerned with questions of equity, efficiency,…
Read moreInequality and taxation are fundamental problems of modern times. How and when can democracies tax economic elites? This book develops a theoretical framework that refines and integrates the classic concepts of business’s instrumental (political) power and structural (investment) power to explain the scope and fate of tax initiatives targeting economic elites in Latin America after…
Read moreThe reduction of poverty, and more recently inequality, are pressing concerns in many low- and middle-income countries, not in the least as a result of the Sustainable Development Goals committing countries to significant improvements by 2030. Redistribution is important for reaching these goals, and is shaped by countries’ tax and welfare systems. Despite redistribution resulting…
Read moreThis paper aims to advance understanding about the relationship between taxation and inequality in developing countries, focusing on the recent experience of Latin America. Although the tax system was regressive in the 1990s, tax changes promoted equality in the first decade of the 2000s. In particular, the increasing contribution of direct taxes with respect to…
Read moreThis paper is the first in a series of three studies looking at tax compliance using administrative data from Rwanda. It discusses the use of administrative data for tax research – specifically anonymised taxpayers records, which have become increasingly available on the African continent. The paper starts by critically summarising the key advantages and disadvantages…
Read moreThis ICTD Research in Brief is a two-page summary of ICTD Working Paper 48 by Giulia Mascagni and Andualem Mengistu. This series is aimed at policy makers, tax administrators, fellow researchers and anyone else who is big on interest and short on time. This paper looks at the challenge faced by many low income countries of increasing tax revenue dramatically while minimising distortions…
Read moreAt the level of tax design, the answer to this question is clear and positive. It would be easy, for example, to draft the international treaty and the national legislation required to implement Thomas Piketty’s (2014) proposal for a global tax on wealth. The obstacles to acceptance and implementation of those proposals are merely political…
Read moreThis paper addresses vulnerability of revenue to external shocks using export composition to capture economic structure and differentiating countries according to income levels, resource endowments and political regimes. This gives a richer characterisation than previous studies. Lower income countries are vulnerable to shocks, especially in terms of trade (associated with the greatest revenue loss): democratic…
Read moreThe relation between aid and taxation is largely contested in the literature. On the one hand, aid may act as a substitute for tax revenue and thus have a crowding-out effect. It can also have a detrimental effect on domestic tax institutions. On the other hand, it can promote and support tax mobilisation through policy…
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