Informal Taxation in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone: Taxpayers’ Experiences and Perceptions

Abstract:

Research in Brief 15

In low-income and post-conflict countries, and particularly in rural areas, citizens often pay a range of ‘taxes’ that differ substantially from statutory policies. These ‘informal taxes’, paid to a variety of state and non-state actors, are frequently overlooked in analyses of local systems of taxation. This is problematic, as it leads to misunderstandings of individual and household tax burdens, as well as of systems of local governance. This is a 2-page brief summary of Working Paper 66 by Samuel Jibao, Wilson Prichard, and Vanessa van den Boogaard.