Can tax agents support tax compliance in low‐income countries? Evidence from Uganda
| Published date | 01 October 2023 |
| Author | Giovanni Occhiali,Fredrick Kalyango |
| Date | 01 October 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.2022 |
Received: 9 April 2022
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Revised: 8 May 2023
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Accepted: 11 May 2023
DOI: 10.1002/pad.2022
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Can tax agents support tax compliance in low‐income
countries? Evidence from Uganda
Giovanni Occhiali
1
|Fredrick Kalyango
2
1
International Centre for Tax and
Development, Institute of Development
Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
2
Uganda Revenue Authority, Kampala, Uganda
Correspondence
Giovanni Occhiali, International Centre for
Tax and Development, Institute of
Development Studies, University of Sussex,
Brighton BN1 9RE, UK.
Email: g.occhiali@ids.ac.uk
Funding information
Direktoratet for Utviklingssamarbeid; Foreign,
Commonwealth and Development Office; Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation
Abstract
Tax agents' role in ensuring or deterring compliance with tax obligations has
received relatively little attention in the literature. Some evidence has emerged
indicating when agents improve (or decrease) compliance, and why taxpayers
employ their services. However, most existing studies have focused on high‐or
upper‐middle‐income countries. As the tax systems of low‐income countries present
a unique set of compliance issues, a closer look at the role that tax agents play in
these contexts is warranted. In this paper, we present evidence from two surveys on
their use in Uganda. Our results show that tax agents contribute to an increased
quality of filed returns thereby leading to lower audit adjustments The type of
services more frequently requested by taxpayers seem to match those in high‐
income countries, as do their reasons for engaging tax agents in the first place.
KEYWORDS
low‐income countries, tax agents, tax compliance, Uganda
1
|
INTRODUCTION
Increasing domestic revenue mobilisation in low‐income countries
(LICs) remains today as important as it was at the launch of the Addis
Tax Initiative
1
a few years ago (Addis Tax Initiative, 2015; Dom
et al., 2022; Moore & Prichard, 2020). Over the last 2 decades, much
donor support has been directed towards improving the functioning
of tax systems in LICs (Fjeldstad, 2014) to reduce their aid de-
pendency (Morrisey, 2015). Donor‐promoted reform packages
exhibited many similarities (Dom & Miller, 2018; Fjeldstad, 2014),
amongst which the institution of semi‐autonomous revenue author-
ities (SARAs) scored highly (Devas et al., 2001; Fjeldstad &
Moore, 2009; Moore et al., 2018). The impact of SARAs introduction
on revenue collection is still debated in the literature (see Dom, 2019
and Jeppesen, 2021 for two recent contributions), but this was not
the only benefit expected from their institution. Indeed, SARAs'
mission was to engage in tax administration with a more service‐
oriented approach, including taxpayers' education and training to
reduce their compliance cost (Mascagni et al., 2019; Mascagni &
Santoro, 2018; Serra, 2005; van Soest, 2007). While there is ample
evidence that tax‐literacy in LICs often remains low, limiting the
potential democratic‐dividend of state‐citizens bargaining on tax
matters (Fjeldstad, 2014; Moore et al., 2018; van den Boogaard
et al., 2022), research on the impact of SARAs taxpayers' education is
still scarce (Mascagni et al., 2019; Mascagni & Santoro, 2018).
However, SARAs are not the only body who can contribute to
reduce issues connected with taxpayers' low understanding of their
tax obligation. In high‐income countries (HICs), where increased tax
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, pro-
vided the original work is properly cited.
© 2023 The Authors. Public Administration and Development published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
1
The Addis Tax Initiative is a partnership among 71 countries and development partners aiming to “promote fair and effective domestic revenue mobilisation (DRM), policy coherence and the
social contract through partnerships and knowledge building”, see https://www.addistaxinitiative.net/.
Public Admin Dev. 2023;43:269–279. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pad
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