Raising Tax Revenue in Low Income Countries

: What are the Most Effective Measures? The Case of Ethiopia and Georgia

Résumé

Tax is the primary source of government revenue in developing countries. However, because of weak tax administration, excessive corruption, and low tax payers compliance, the tax collection capacity is quite small. To improve tax revenues and its collection mechanisms, tax reform projects in the world, especially in developing and emerging countries are influenced by international institutions and advanced countries governments. The main objective of this study is to analyze the effectiveness of various tax reform measures on tax revenue and on income redistribution (income inequality) in Ethiopia and Georgia using a secondary time series data ranging from 1995-2019 and analyzed through descriptive method of data analysis. The result shows that in Georgia tax reform bring a significant rise in tax revenue while for Ethiopia the effect is negligible to boost tax revenue. For Ethiopia international trade tax per GDP has a better contribution while for Georgia the share of VAT and personal income tax followed by corporate income tax per GDP have great contribution on tax revenue. On the other hand, VAT, PIT, and CIT per GDP ratio for Georgia and foreign trade taxes per GDP for Ethiopia have a strong negative correlation with income inequality while VAT and BIT for Ethiopia and international trade taxes for Georgia have a negative correlation with income inequality but there correlation is weak. In Ethiopia the tax reform should be revised to boost tax revenue and to increase its share to GDP.

la date de réponse	juin 2021
langue originale	Anglais
L'institution diplômante	Universite de Namur
Superviseur	Mary Van Overbeke (Promoteur) & Stephanie Weynants (Copromoteur)