Filter by...
Reset all
Publications (30)
Working Paper
pdf
– Comparing the performance of universal basic income in Uganda and Zambia during COVID-19
The debate over universal basic income (UBI) has gained traction in the developing world in recent years. We analyse the effects of four UBI schemes on poverty and inequality measures during normal times and times of crisis in Uganda and Zambia. We use static microsimulation models and nationally...
Working Paper
pdf
Cross-border traders face a choice between official and unofficial border crossings. The latter allow them to evade taxes, but expose them to other risks, such as bribes, fines, and arrest. We investigate the perceptions of cross-border traders about the risks of trading officially vs unofficially...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper studies the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on formal sector employment in Uganda. Utilizing employee-level administrative tax data from the Uganda Revenue Authority, we describe the dynamics of employment as the pandemic evolved, seeking to better understand the various coping strategies...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from Kampala, Uganda
This paper investigates business tax compliance in a multilevel tax structure with limited coordination. We study the case of Kampala, where firms are taxed at national and local levels—by the Uganda Revenue Authority and the Kampala Capital City Authority, respectively—and where the agencies...
Working Paper
pdf
Uganda has one of the lowest corporate income tax collection rates in sub-Saharan Africa, while offering generous corporate tax incentives. It is unclear whether tax incentives achieve their objectives without primarily benefiting firms, potentially undermining domestic revenue mobilization and...
Working Paper
pdf
– A comparative perspective
We examine the distributional effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated tax-benefit measures in seven sub-Saharan African countries, focusing on the onset of the crisis.We evaluate impacts on disposable incomes, considering variations across income groups; assess the effectiveness of tax...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from Uganda
We investigate how the arrival and expansion of mobile network access in Uganda influences firm tax behaviour. Access to mobile technologies could broaden government revenues from corporate income tax through the extensive margin: by reducing the costs of formalization, it could increase the number...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from personal income tax reform in Uganda
We evaluate a major personal income tax reform in Uganda that came into effect in 2012–13, contributing to the scarce literature on the effects of personal income tax reform on employees’ income in a low-income country in Africa. The reform increased the tax-free lower threshold, increased tax rates...
Working Paper
pdf
We study the effectiveness of social protection benefits in reducing income and consumption poverty in five sub-Saharan African countries—Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia—in normal times and times of widespread economic crisis. Using tax–benefit microsimulation models with...
Working Paper
pdf
We use income data from tax registers at the Uganda Revenue Authority from 2011 to 2017 to estimate top income inequality, focusing on the very top—the top 1, 0.1, and 0.01 per cent of the income distribution. The focus on the extreme top is facilitated by access to population data on formal sector...
Working Paper
pdf
The paper examines the legacy of pre-colonial centralization on tax compliance norms of citizens in contemporary Uganda. By combining geo-referenced anthropological data on pre-colonial ethnic homelands with survey data from several rounds of the Afrobarometer Survey, respondents from the...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evaluating the 2020 reform and four alternative reform scenarios using UGAMOD, a tax-benefit microsimulation model for Uganda
Presumptive tax, a final tax on business income, was introduced in Uganda in 1997. The latest reform to the regime in July 2020 sought to make the system more progressive, simpler, and fairer to small firms. In this work, we evaluate the reform, focusing on its revenue implications based on...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper analyses the distributional effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and related tax-benefit measures in 2020 in a cross-country comparative perspective for five African countries: Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. We first estimate the impact of the crisis on disposable incomes...
Working Paper
pdf
– Do multinational corporations face lower effective tax rates and is there evidence for profit shifting?
We study how large domestic firms and multinational corporations compare in their effective tax rates and whether there is evidence of profit shifting out of Uganda. Using administrative data from the Uganda Revenue Authority and regression analysis, we find that multinational corporations lower...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from Ugandan administrative tax data
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...
Working Paper
pdf
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...
Displaying 16 of 30 results