Research in Brief

What Impact Do Tax Agents Have on Taxpayers’ Compliance in Uganda? Evidence from Tax Administrative Data

Research in Brief 172

Tax agents occupy a pivotal yet understudied position in tax systems. Most existing knowledge on their role comes from earlier work in high- and upper-middle-income countries. This generally finds that taxpayers hire agents to meet obligations they perceive as complex, while a smaller group seeks to minimise their tax liability through the exploitation of legal loopholes made possible by aggressive tax advice. This dual compliance-avoidance role has scarcely been examined in low-income countries. Exploratory evidence from Uganda, drawn from small surveys of revenue officials and tax agents, suggests a similar pattern – taxpayers primarily engage agents to navigate a complex tax system, and the most requested services are reviewing bookkeeping and preparing returns. On the other hand, tax officials prefer interacting with agents, and view agent-prepared returns as less prone to large audit adjustments. However, these surveys could not establish system-wide effects, due to small samples and limited access to data.

Summary of ICTD Working Paper 221.

Authors

Giovanni Occhiali

Dr Giovanni Occhiali is a Development Economist based at the Institute of Development Studies, where he works on a number of projects related to Tax Administration and Compliance, Tax and Governance and co-leads ICTD’s capacity building programme together with Dr Max Gallien. His research focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa, and outside of the field of taxation his main interests are energy economics and industrial policies. He holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham and prior to joining ICTD, he was a Researcher at the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei and an Overseas Development Institute Fellow at the National Revenue Authority of Sierra Leone.

Fredrick Kalyango

Fredrick Kalyango is a tax practitioner with over 15 years of experience in tax administration. He is currently working as an Ag. Manager of Quality Assurance in the Domestic Taxes Department, Business Policy Division of the Uganda Revenue Authority. He is a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Uganda (ICPAU).
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Publication Details

Publisher: Institute of Development Studies
Date: October 2025
Citation: Occhiali, G. and Kalyango, F. (2025) What Impact Do Tax Agents Have on Taxpayers’ Compliance in Uganda? Evidence from Tax Administrative Data, ICTD Research in Brief 172, Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, DOI: 10.19088/ICTD.2025.062
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Research theme:
Keywords: low-income countries, propensity score matching, tax administrative data, tax agents, tax compliance, Uganda
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