Institutional history or ‘quid-pro-quo’? Exploring revenue collection in two Ugandan districts.

ABSTRACT This paper explores why financial decentralization and political pressure to lower graduated personal tax has had different impacts in two Ugandan districts. It examines three possible explanations to these differences focusing on different aspects of the local context. The quid-pro-quo explanation focuses on whether services are delivered in return for the tax paid. Different perceived service delivery levels would then explain differences in compliance and tax takes. The neo-patrimonial explanation argues that differences in the degree to which personal relations dominate over formal rules would explain the differences in tax takes. The extractive capacity explanation focuses on established practices with regard to tax collection and stresses the fact that administrative autonomy differ among districts. The paper argues that the latter explanation is most plausible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]