African Tax Administration Paper

Using Digital Technologies to Improve Tax Collection – the Case of Togo

African Tax Administration Paper 31

The increasing digitalisation of African economies over the past decade, and the spread of mobile money and digital financial services (DFS), has given both opportunities and challenges to tax administrations in Africa. In theory, the use of digital technologies and expanded use of DFS can provide tax administrations with access to extensive new digitised data, increase transparency, and make the overall taxpayer experience easier. All this can ultimately improve the tax administration’s performance. However, studies show that tax administrations face important challenges in how to best develop their capacity to use digitised data, and to re-align operations and skills to new digitalised operating models. This paper is a policy-oriented qualitative study focusing on Togo. Like several African tax administrations, in 2014 the Office Togolais des Recettes (OTR) embarked on digital transformation. It invested in digital technologies, including e-Services such as Tmoney and Flooz, which were developed with telecom companies and banks. Our paper aims to provide more quantitative and qualitative evidence on enablers and inhibitors to adopting digital technologies and DFS, which will help African tax administrations to fully use their capabilities. We carried out inductive content analysis on qualitative data from key informant interviews and focus group discussions with key stakeholders. We also conducted online surveys of taxpayers from large and medium-sized enterprises. We triangulated the data from online surveys with data from the qualitative methodology to provide an objective analysis of the benefits of implementing digital technologies and DFS. We identified the independent variables and drivers that are critical to achieving OTR’s objectives for implementing digital technologies and DFS, and the dependent variables representing outcomes relating to OTR’s goals. Using survey data, we developed a regression model assessing the association between the drivers and outcomes, grouping them into key outcomes.

Authors

Dorothy Kang’oro

Dorothy Kang’oro is an international tax lawyer and managing partner of Afrilaw, a boutique tax and legal firm headquartered in South Africa. She holds an Advanced Master’s in international tax law from the University of Amsterdam. Her research interests are digital transformation, artificial intelligence, tax and development, with a focus on how technological innovations can improve tax administration and management.

Fidèle Kanyarugero Ngerero

Fidèle Ngerero is an international taxation specialist based in Rwanda. Formerly a senior official with the Rwanda Revenue Authority, he holds a Master’s in Business Administration from STES-Rwanda and a Masters in Finance from Liège University. His research interests include public finance and taxation, with a focus on tax administrations’ performance enhancement and revenue mobilisation. He has provided research support to Rwanda Revenue Authority’s efforts to combat tax evasion, fraud and smuggling in customs and VAT, and abuse of investment incentives.

Ignatius Odongo

Ignatius Odongo is a post-doctoral research associate at Regenesys Business School (South Africa), where he also works as an adjunct research supervisor and external examiner. He holds a Doctor of Business Administration in Entrepreneurship from Monarch Business School, Switzerland and has a Master’s in Practicing Management. He also holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Strategic Marketing Management from the UK’s Chartered Institute of Marketing. Dr Odongo is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. His research interests include socio-economic development, entrepreneurship development, public health, public policy and governance.
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Publication Details

Publisher: ICTD
Date: October 2023
Citation: Kang’oro, D.; Ngerero, F. and Odongo, I. (2023) 'Using Digital Technologies to Improve Tax Collection – the Case of Togo', ICTD, African Tax Administration Paper 31, DOI: 10.19088/ICTD.2023.054
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