Ethiopian Tax Research Network Library
Resources to enhance the exchange of tax knowledge in Nigeria
Research focusing on challenges in increasing property tax revenues in Africa
Resources on topics related to taxation in Ethiopia, ranging from tax policy to tax administration, and from academic papers to practical case studies
Following the third international Financing for Development Conference, the United Nations General Assembly endorsed the Addis Ababa Action Agenda. The first action area, outlined as “critical to achieving the sustainable development goals,” is mobilising domestic public resources. Countries committed to “enhancing revenue administration through modernized, progressive tax systems, improved tax policy and more efficient tax collection.”
As a member of the Addis Tax Initiative, Ethiopia has committed to stepping up domestic resource mobilisation. Currently, Ethiopia’s tax to GDP ratio stands at about 13%, below the 15% considered necessary to fund adequate public services. Key to raising increased tax revenue in an equitable manner, and without impeding economic growth, is rigorous research that can inform both tax policy and practice.
To this end, the Ethiopian Tax Research Network (ETRN) was launched in September 2017. The ETRN is coordinated by the International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD) and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The ETRN is dedicated to enhancing the generation and exchange of tax knowledge in Ethiopia. It is concerned with all topics related to taxation, ranging from tax policy to tax administration, and from academic papers to practical case studies. This library is intended to be of use to members of the ETRN, including tax practitioners and researchers from both Ethiopian and international organisations.
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Can ICTs increase tax compliance? Evidence on taxpayer responses to technological innovation in Ethiopia
Elsevier, 2021The widespread introduction of ICTs and digitised data management systems is one of the most important developments amongst African tax administrations in recent years. However, very little evidence is available on their effectiveness to increase compliance and on how taxpayers respond to these changes. This paper starts filling this gap by reporting three sets of results from Ethiopia. First, we evaluate the impact of a technological innovation, the adoption of electronic sales registration machines, on taxpayers’ self reports....Effective tax rates and firm size in Ethiopia
Wiley Online Library, 2018The literature on Effective Tax Rates (ETRs) focuses on high- and middle-income countries, but there is very little evidence on low-income countries. This article addresses this gap with new evidence from Ethiopia. We investigate corporate ETRs in Ethiopia and whether the distributional effects they have in practice are in line with the corporate tax policy design. We calculate ETRs in line with the literature in this field, using profit tax at the numerator and gross profit at the denominator....Factors affecting the adoption and usage of electronic tax system in Ethiopia in the case of Addis Ababa city large taxpayers
Taylor and Francis Group, 2021The aim of this research is to assess the adoption and usage of electronic tax system in the case of large taxpayers in Addis Ababa city through the implementation of unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model with the addition of web quality, awareness, anxiety and perceived risk. Data for the study were derived from 384 respondents and analyzed by using the ordered logistic model....Gender and Tax Incidence of Rural Land Use Fee and Agricultural Income Tax in Ethiopia
World Bank, 2021The rural land use fee and agricultural income tax are major payments for rural landholders in Ethiopia. This paper examines the gender implications of these taxes using tax payment and individual land ownership data from the Ethiopian Socioeconomic Survey 2018/2019. It finds that the rural land use fee and agricultural income tax, which are assessed on the area of landholdings, are regressive. Female-headed- and female adult-only households bear a larger tax burden than male-headed and dual-adult households....Trade Tax Evasion and the Tax Rate: Evidence from Transaction-level Trade Data
Oxford University Press, 2021This paper explores the relationship between tax rates and tax evasion in a low-income country context: Ethiopia. By using transaction-level administrative trade data, we are able to provide an analysis that is largely comparable with the rest of the literature while also introducing two important innovations. First, we compare the elasticity of evasion to statutory tax rates and effective tax rates (ETRs). Most studies in the literature so far focused on the former....The Impact of Intergovernmental Transfers on Fiscal Behaviour of Local Governments in Ethiopia
International Centre for Tax and Development, 2020This paper examines the effect of intergovernmental fiscal transfers on the fiscal behaviour of local governments in Ethiopia for the period 2004-2018. The empirical findings suggest that central government grants bolster state-level employment and expenditure. However, grants from the central government to states do not crowd out state-level revenue collection. Hence, this paper argues that fiscal decentralisation in Ethiopia has mostly, at least in theory, taken the form of devolution of the power to tax and spend public money....Gender and Tax Compliance: Firm Level Evidence from Ethiopia
International Centre for Tax and Development, 2020Developing countries often lack tax information and enforcement capacity necessary to effectively implement instruments of a modern tax system, such as VAT, income taxes and others. An alternative strategy to increase tax compliance, and thus revenue, in these countries may depend on the capacity of policymakers to harness individual’s civicmindedness, social norms, reciprocity and cultural values of trust (Prichard, Custers, Dom, Davenport and Roscitt 2019)....Perceptions of Value Added Tax Filing and Invoicing Compliance in Ethiopia: The Case of Three Federal Branch Offices in Addis Ababa
International Centre for Tax and Development, 2019African governments are increasingly seeking to improve tax compliance in the pursuit of domestic revenue sources. Despite this trend, there is limited understanding of value added tax (VAT) compliance in Africa. In Ethiopia, increased VAT compliance is essential for the government to meet its ambitious domestic revenue goals. Therefore, we surveyed 652 Ethiopian VAT-registered businesses to better understand VAT compliance attitudes. Our study found that compliance is negatively affected by the time and effort required to file VAT....Practices, Challenges and Prospects for Public Sector Taxation in Ethiopia
International Centre for Tax and Development, 2019The tax compliance behaviour of the public sector has been largely neglected in the tax literature. Other than appearing in tax laws as taxpayers, in practice the compliance strategies employed by revenue authorities do not sufficiently cater to government agencies. Enforcement of tax payments on these agencies is generally perceived to be a difficult undertaking and of less value than other priorities. One strategy to improve tax compliance in the public sector has been to separate them from other taxpayers and to provide them with special treatment....Turnover-based Presumptive Taxation and Taxpayers' Perceptions in Ethiopia
International Centre for Tax and Development, 2019This paper focuses on the perceptions of a turnover-based presumptive tax system in Ethiopia. It mainly focuses on taxpayers’ perceptions of fairness, simplicity and administrative capacity. In this study, fairness has been assessed based on seven dimensions, namely exchange fairness, procedural fairness, horizontal fairness, vertical fairness, inter-group fairness, time-related fairness and compliance fairness. Exchange fairness refers to the adequacy of the provision of public goods and services to citizens in the long run....