This paper conducts an impact evaluation of the effects of two tax administration interventions—a taxpayer register expansion and education programme, and a new electronic filing system for presumptive tax—on the number of small business taxpayers and presumptive tax revenues in Uganda. Using a difference-in-differences approach and administrative data covering both presumptive taxpayers and comparable small corporate income taxpayers, we find that the number of small business taxpayers filing tax returns and presumptive tax revenues increased substantially after the interventions. We argue that the interventions complement each other because both interventions were established around the same years, and the taxpayer register expansion programme focused on not only registering but also educating taxpayers with regard to tax compliance. We analyse the cost-effectiveness of the taxpayer register expansion programme and find that the benefits outweigh the costs.

This note has been prepared within the UNU-WIDER project SOUTHMOD -simulating tax and benefit policies for development Phase 2, which is part of the Domestic Revenue Mobilization programme. The programme is financed through specific contributions by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad).

We use four novel, crosscountry comparable tax-bene t microsimulation models for Ecuador, Ghana, Tanzania and South Africa to analyse ex ante the expansion of a universal old-age pension in a static setting. Universal pensions would signi cantly reduce poverty and inequality in settings where no means-tested old-age pensions exist (such as in Ghana and Tanzania). If means-tested old-age pensions exist and shall be maintained, universal pensions as a top up scheme only make a di ference for the income distribution if the existing schemes do not reach the entire vulnerable population such as in Ecuador. Costs for the proposed schemes are substantial.

This study has been prepared within the UNU-WIDER project on 'SOUTHMOD-Simulating Tax and Benefit Policies for Development' which is part of a larger research project on 'The economics and politics of taxation and social protection'.

We evaluate a major personal income tax reform in Uganda that came into effect in 2012–13. The reform increased the tax-free lower threshold, increased tax rates for higher incomes, and introduced an additional highest tax band. Using the universe of pay-as-you-earn administrative data submitted by employers in the formal sector, we analyse the impact on taxable income of the introduction of the additional top tax band. Our results indicate that the elasticity of taxable income in Uganda is larger than in previous results from developed countries. Overall, the additional revenue generated from the introduction of the additional top tax band by far offset the revenues lost from the decreased revenues from employees with medium to lower taxable incomes, despite the large elasticity of taxable income at the top. We contribute to the very scarce literature on the effects of personal income tax reform on employees’ income in a low-income country in Africa.

No abstract

This note has been prepared within the UNU-WIDER project SOUTHMOD -simulating tax and benefit policies for development Phase 2, which is part of the Domestic Revenue Mobilization programme. The programme is financed through specific contributions by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad).

No abstract