Tax Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa : a Survey of Issues for a Number of Countries

Download or read book Tax Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa : a Survey of Issues for a Number of Countries written by and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper studies tax policies as currently pursued in a number of sub-Saharan African countries, against the backdrop of economic globalisation and reduced trade tax revenue. It tries to come up with answers to the following question: what are most effective and (economically) efficient ways to raise sufficient domestic (tax) revenues? To analyse this, first, a normative framework for the major individual domestic tax interventions - broad based and specific taxation of consumption and taxation of income, both at the personal and the corporate level - has been developed, based on a thorough review of the literature. This framework is subsequently used to assess the tax systems as found in fifteen sub-Saharan African countries. The analysis shows that there is much room for improvement in VAT systems (thresholds may be higher, the number of exemptions may be decreased) in corporate income tax systems (ending exemptions, streamlining depreciation allowances, aligning rates, scaling back tax incentives) as well as in excises and personal income tax systems. These improvements will enable raising more revenue, as well as a more efficient collection of taxes.