In recent years, tax treaties concluded by sub-Saharan African countries have become more residence-based with fewer provisions allocating taxing rights to the source countries. This trend is observed in treaties signed with OECD countries in particular. For countries which are capital importers, as is the case with most African countries, this means that these countries…
A demand-supply framework has been developed and applied to Tanzania to explore the link between democratisation, economic liberalisation and the use of tax exemptions to fund political parties’ electoral campaigns. In Tanzania, the demand for this type of money has increased since one-party rule was abolished in 1992. This led to reduced state subsidies to…
Read moreIn 2013 the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in conjunction with other development partners, introduced the Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool (TADAT) to aid assessment of the performance of tax administrations around the world. The first TADAT assessment of Uganda’s tax administration was conducted in 2015, and the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) resolved to adopt the…
Read moreThe current method of property valuation in Freetown, Sierra Leone is highly inaccurate and generally regressive, as it does not take subjective property characteristics that are major determinants of value into account. The newly elected Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr made revenue mobilisation a central pillar of her ‘Transform Freetown’ agenda. As a means of achieving this,…
Read moreTax evasion is typically very hard, if not impossible, to measure. In the case of trade flows however, it is possible to capture it thanks to “missing imports”: the difference between the total value of exports recorded by country A to country B and the total value of imports of country B from country A….
Read moreUganda embraced decentralisation as a system of governance in the early 1990’s. The success of decentralisation was pegged on the capacity of the local governments to mobilise their own revenues in order to fulfill their responsibilities. Before its suspension in 2005 and eventual abolition in 2008, graduated tax constituted a dominant source of local revenue….
Read moreTax expenditures occur when a government provides a reduction in a tax obligation such that it collects less tax than it would have otherwise collected. Tax expenditures are an integral, though controversial, part of all contemporary tax systems. This policy briefing first summarises the various ways in which tax expenditures can be defined and measured….
Read moreThis paper presents a conceptual framework for developing more effective approaches to tax reform and compliance. The framework proposes that by combining complementary investments in enforcement, facilitation, and trust, reformers can not only strengthen enforced compliance but can also (a) encourage quasi-voluntary compliance, (b) generate sustainable political support for reform, and (c) create conditions that…
Read moreIt is well documented in the literature that developing countries raise less tax revenue as a share of their economy than their developed counterparts. Part of this gap can be explained by the relatively higher tax evasion in the former. Recent literature shows that increasing the availability of information reduces evasion, by increasing the probability…
Read moreThis study explores how small business owners talk about their tax responsibility, especially in non-enabling institutional contexts. It identifies two main types of tax responsibility discourses amongst these business owners: (1) duty-based and (2) rights-based. The duty-based talks see taxation primarily as the citizens’ responsibility to governments, which should always be fulfilled unconditionally, while rights-based…
Read moreWe lack good indicators of the quality of national tax administrations, especially for low-income countries. The situation is, however, improving. Through the relatively new TADAT process (Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool), an increasing number of national tax administrations are receiving scores from teams of peer reviewers on how well they perform in nine key functions….
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