Tax revenue data in Africa : the Government Revenue Dataset and African Tax Outlook in comparison

This paper compares two important sources of tax revenue statistics for African countries, namely the Africa Tax Administration Forum's African Tax Outlook and the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research Government Revenue Dataset. We consider the background, construction, sources, and user bases of each dataset before comparing the scope and attempting to understand where commonalities and differences lie. The bulk of the paper focuses on a quantitative comparison of ten key variables across the two datasets. We find that, although in principle the same concepts are captured across both, there are myriad differences in the values of key revenue variables between the two sources. We look in depth at three causes of such differences, namely the treatment of withholding taxes, revenue from the Southern African Customs Union revenue sharing agreement, and natural resource revenues.