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The pandemic has had significant fiscal implications around the world. A key question facing governments is how the pandemic has shaped taxpayer attitudes and what that means for the prospects for tax reform and new revenue raising. We aim to understand the impacts of the pandemic on attitudes toward taxation in Sierra Leone with novel survey data, collected before the pandemic, shortly after the pandemic's onset, and for almost a year afterwards. Four key findings emerge. First, immediately after the crisis onset we see increased support for taxation in Freetown, despite escalating economic challenges. Second, at the same time that taxpayers show greater general support for taxation they become more likely to believe that one could refuse to pay taxes if government fails to deliver services in return. Third, while we lack baseline data on support for progressive taxation, we find rising and sustained support for it over the course of the pandemic. Finally, although we see an initial increase in willingness to pay more taxes for services, that support erodes over time. These findings have significant implications for understanding both immediate responses to the pandemic, and the broader politics of taxation and tax reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Motivation: In recent years, governments in low‐income countries have increasingly introduced taxes on mobile money transfers. These are often explicitly promoted as a way of taxing informal economic activity, but critics have noted their potential negative impact on lower‐income groups and specifically those in the informal sector. Yet there is virtually no evidence base on the effects of mobile money taxes on informal workers. Purpose: This article assesses how informal workers in Accra, Ghana, use mobile money and how they perceive Ghana's Electronic Transfer Levy (E‐levy), introduced in May 2022. This provides a particularly interesting case study to explore the equity implications of the tax, as the policy was explicitly justified as a way of taxing the informal economy but also includes measures to limit the tax burden on lower‐income groups. Methods and approach: The article uses data from a survey of 2,700 self‐employed informal workers in the Accra Metropolitan Assembly to capture citizen perceptions of the policy and to examine the likely impact of the E‐levy on informal workers with reference to equity. Findings: Overall, our results suggest that the E‐levy is highly regressive. Further, we show that most informal workers disapprove of the E‐levy, reflecting not just concerns about its equity impacts, but also disappointment with the government's performance. Policy implications: Our findings suggest that taxes on digital financial services should be reconsidered from an equity perspective. While some policy measures, including those undertaken in Ghana, can protect low‐income earners, they are often insufficient to counteract overall regressive impacts. Where they are implemented, social spending from the revenue from these taxes should target low‐income populations in the informal economy, while governments should focus on building trust among informal workers with regard to revenue raising and spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community contributions are often required as part of community‐driven development programs, with contributions encouraged through matching grants. However, little remains known about the impact of matching grants or the implications of requiring community contributions—also known as informal taxation. We explore this research gap through a randomized control trial of a matching grant program in Gedo region in south‐central Somalia. We find that matching grants can increase informal taxation and serve as an effective means of delivering public goods. Moreover, we find that the program strengthened local government legitimacy, despite the local government playing no direct role in the program. These findings deepen our understanding of how matching grants may contribute to community‐driven development in a context of weak institutional capacity, while pointing to potential complementarities between state and non‐state actors in governance and service provision, formal and informal institutions, and formal and informal taxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

James Ferguson. 2015. Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 280 pp. In recent years, there has been a growing [...]

Timothy Raeymaekers. 2014. Violent Capitalism and Hybrid Identity in the Eastern Congo: Power to the Margins. New York: Cambridge University Press. 191 pp. In Violent Capitalism and Hybrid Identity in [...]

Motivation: While there is increasing evidence that taxation can contribute to greater government responsiveness and accountability, such positive outcomes are not guaranteed. If the environment does not enable tax bargaining, there is a risk that taxation will amount to little more than enforced extraction. Purpose: We consider how such enabling environments may be fostered and identify specific strategies that governments, civil society actors, and donors can adopt to strengthen the links between taxation, responsiveness, and accountability. Methods and approach: We undertake two case studies of tax transparency and taxpayer engagement in Ghana and Sierra Leone, making use of data from taxpayer surveys, focus group discussions (FGDs), and interviews with key stakeholders in government, civil society, and donor agencies. Findings: We highlight two key findings. First, meaningful transparency requires that information is comprehensive, relates to taxpayers' priorities, and serve as a basis for dialogue between taxpayers and governments. Second, there is a need to proactively encourage taxpayer engagement by supporting forums for engagement that taxpayers perceive as safe, secure and sincere. This has been most successful where governments have visibly demonstrated responsiveness to citizens' concerns, even on a small scale, while partnering with civil society to foster trust and dialogue. Policy implications: Our findings point to the need for taxpayer education and engagement programmes that make information more accessible and more directly relevant to taxpayers' everyday experiences. In particular, policymakers and development partners need to expand existing efforts to facilitate engagement and dialogue regarding what revenues are collected and how they are spent. We highlight the valuable role that civil society can play as translators of tax information, enablers of public forums, and trainers to support greater tax literacy and sustained taxpayer engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pandemic is in many ways a crisis of governance. It has created a set of unique challenges that underscore the need for governments to collect revenue more efficiently and equitably; and to spend it more inclusively, transparently, and accountably, especially on the most vulnerable and marginalised populations. In this article, we suggest a set of governance interventions to help create conditions for building effective and inclusive institutions that can support efforts to build back better. We propose that the impact of the pandemic can be dealt with through a mix of some interventions that deal with the immediate impacts of the crisis, and other interventions that can transform development in the longer term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In low-income countries, citizens often pay 'taxes' that differ substantially from what is required by statute. These non-statutory taxes are central to financing both local public goods and maintaining informal governance institutions. This study captures the incidence of informal taxation and taxpayer perspectives on these payments. We find, first, that informal taxes are a prevalent reality within areas of weak formal statehood in Sierra Leone, with households paying an equal number of informal and formal taxes. Second, we find positive taxpayer perceptions of the fairness of informal taxes relative to formal taxes, despite informal taxes being regressive in their distribution. We explain this by the fact that taxpayers are more likely to trust the actor levying these payments and are more likely to believe that they will be used to deliver benefits to the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This project of critical citizenship studies and comparative political theory utilizes a framework of multiple modernities in order to deeply explore the ontological foundations and complexities of a non-Western conception of citizenship and nationhood: political pan-Africanism. It does so through a study of the political thought of Kwame Nkrumah, a deeply influential political theorist and actor, in the context of the Gold Coast’s struggle for independence and in the initial years of Ghanaian post-colonialism. How did Nkrumah conceive of Pan-Africanist citizenship and nationhood in political and ontological terms? How does this relate to both modern conceptions of citizenship as tied to the nation-state and traditional Ghanaian conceptions of citizenship and belonging? After considering these questions, this paper explores how Nkrumah’s vision of Pan-Africanism was influenced by, yet contradicted central tenets of, Western political thought and modernity. It explores the theoretical and practical tensions inherent between this non-Western conception of the nation and the dominance of aspects of ‘Western’ modernity. Exploring these questions through the lens of Nkrumah’s political thought offers an Afrocentric study in an effort to strengthen African historical agency and to deparochialize citizenship studies and political theory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]