There is a widespread perception that taxing in sub-Saharan Africa has been and remains fraught with problems or government failure. This is not generally true. For more than a century, colonial administrations and independent states have steadily developed the capacity to routinely collect more...

This paper proposes a method for evaluating the impact of tax reform on tax revenues and the distribution of the tax burden. The technique consists of decomposing actual revenue relative to potential revenue into components attributable to (i) changes in the tax rate structure (ii) deductions...

Semi-autonomous revenue authorities (SARAs) have been at the centre of tax administration reform in Sub-Saharan Africa for the last 30 years. Nevertheless, the revenue effect of this reform remains highly debated (Ahlerup et al., 2015; Ebeke et al., 2016; Fjeldstad and Moore, 2009; Sarr, 2016; Von Haldenwang et...