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Showing 48-59 of 320 publications
June 2019

Perceptions of Value Added Tax Filing and Invoicing Compliance in Ethiopia: The Case of Three Federal Branch Offices in Addis Ababa

Worku Tamrie Atnafu, Gebregziabhere Gebretsadik Kalayou & Assefa Gezae Huluf with Colin Anderson

African governments are increasingly seeking to improve tax compliance in the pursuit of domestic revenue sources. Despite this trend, there is limited understanding of value added tax (VAT) compliance in Africa. In Ethiopia, increased VAT compliance is essential for the government to meet its ambitious domestic revenue goals. Therefore, we surveyed 652 Ethiopian VAT-registered businesses…

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June 2019

Democratisation in Tanzania: No Elections Without Tax Exemptions

Ole Therkildsen & Dr Ane Karoline Bak

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…

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June 2019

Practices, Challenges and Prospects for Public Sector Taxation in Ethiopia

Ronald Waiswa, Sebsbie Fekade & Asnakech Lake

The tax compliance behaviour of the public sector has been largely neglected in the tax literature. Other than appearing in tax laws as taxpayers, in practice the compliance strategies employed by revenue authorities do not sufficiently cater to government agencies. Enforcement of tax payments on these agencies is generally perceived to be a difficult undertaking…

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June 2019

Small Businesses and the Adoption of the Integrated Tax Administration System in Nigeria

Uchenna Efobi, Ibukun Beecroft & Tanankem Belmondo with Amelia Katan

Transitioning to an electronic system for tax administration and collection is a welcome development in countries that have hitherto faced difficulty in raising tax revenue. Countries like those in sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, account for about 16 percent of GDP from tax revenue, while Nigeria records 1.48 percent of its GDP from tax revenue (World…

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June 2019

The Role of Information Technology to Enhance Property Tax Revenue in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia

William McCluskey, Riël Franzsen, Mundia Kabinga & Chabala Kasese

Public finance theory suggests that property tax is an ideal local tax. But it’s also a ‘data-hungry’ tax, making it difficult and costly to administer properly— especially at the local government level where capacity, skills and resources are often lacking. Given its high data demands, property tax administration lends itself to the application of modern…

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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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May 2019

Small Business Use of the Integrated Tax Administration System in Nigeria

Uchenna Efobi, Ibukun Beecroft & Tanankem Belmondo with Amelia Katan

Our research explores the factors that drive the ways in which small business owners perceive and use the Integrated Tax Administration System (ITAS) in Nigeria. We surveyed nearly 500 small businesses. We apply logistic regression analysis to the survey data to determine which among a range of factors – relating to the ownership of businesses,…

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May 2019

Turnover-Based Presumptive Taxation and Taxpayers’ Perceptions in Ethiopia

Abis Getachew

This paper focuses on the perceptions of a turnover-based presumptive tax system in Ethiopia. It mainly focuses on taxpayers’ perceptions of fairness, simplicity and administrative capacity. In this study, fairness has been assessed based on seven dimensions, namely exchange fairness, procedural fairness, horizontal fairness, vertical fairness, inter-group fairness, time-related fairness and compliance fairness. Exchange fairness…

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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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