Tax, Welfare and Inequality

Smoking tobacco has been much less common traditionally in Africa than in Europe or North America. But this is changing. As Africa has become a growth market for the tobacco industry, adverse health effects are increasingly visible. While increasing tobacco taxation has been shown as the most effective policy tool in curbing tobacco consumption, many…

This paper examines the potential for changes in the tobacco tax to contribute to raising government revenues, reducing tobacco use, and improving public health in Nigeria. Specifically, it estimates the impact of a change in the excise tax structure and level on cigarette consumption, government revenue, smoking prevalence, net-of-tax (NOT) revenue, and the excise tax…

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…

Recent years have seen a dramatic surge in international attention to the importance of revenue raising in developing countries, spurred by: (a) the need for revenues to fund investments critical to the achievement of the sustainable development goals, (b) growing concern with increasing inequality, and (c) the possibility that expanded taxation may offer a platform…

This ICTD Research in Brief is a two-page summary of ICTD Working paper 81 by Olav Lundstøl. This series is aimed at policy makers, tax administrators, fellow researchers and anyone else who is big on interest and short on time. The paper examines the resource rent literature and findit a complicated basis for assessing revenue…

This ICTD Research in Brief is a two-page summary of ICTD Working paper 77 by Olav Lundstøl. This series is aimed at policy makers, tax administrators, fellow researchers and anyone else who is big on interest and short on time.  The paper represents a step in the direction of thinking systematically about tax related aid efforts from…

Revenues from mining constitute a significant development opportunity, particularly in income-poor but resource-rich countries in Africa. However, there is limited knowledge regarding the extent to which such countries have benefitted from the recent global mineral boom from 2003-2013. This paper finds existing approaches to testing rent theory to be a complicated basis for the assessment…

The notion of tax equity raises difficult questions. There is no single right definition of the term, and it is very hard to measure precisely the distributional effects of taxation and fiscal activities, especially in low-income countries. This brief seeks to clarify definitions, evidence and points of potential disagreement when it comes to tax equity, and puts forward eight key elements of a potential agenda for equitable taxation.

This research in brief is a summary of ICTD Working Paper 80 by Kas Sempere. In the broad sense, ‘tax justice’ explores pro-poor and redistributive tax systems able to reduce inequality. It involves a transparent process of pro-poor collection (those who have less, pay less) and pro-poor expenditure (those who have less, receive more), for…

Tax justice has become a popular concept, and a number of international tax justice campaigns have exposed aspects such as the unfairness of tax havens and harmful tax breaks. Yet, the idea of tax justice at the local level is less well-known. The impact of campaigns to end tax havens and harmful tax competition may…