Latest News | News Break Nigeria Between 2011 and 2013, Nigeria and Cameroon faced the largest cred¬ibility gap, while Mauritius and Cape Verde had least credibility gap, sur¬vey on perceived corruption among tax authorities in 29 countries shows. While reform of domestic taxation systems has been accorded high priority across the continent over the past two decades, the perceived lack of integrity of tax au¬thorities remains a major challenge to governments. This suggests that tax reforms over the past dec¬ade may have done little to improve the image of tax officials in the eyes of the public. “Although, tax authori¬ties are not the worst of¬fenders (an honour reserved for the police), the public perceives high level of cor¬ruption among tax officials. These perceptions appear to be directly linked to lower levels of consent to taxation, and lower reported levels of compliance,” said Rose Aiko, a director of research on governance and service delivery at REPOA Policy Research for Development in Dar es Salaam. While presenting Afro¬barometer’s unprecedented survey of 29 countries in Lagos, she noted that Africa’s willing taxpayers are thwart¬ed by opaque tax systems and corruption, adding, “Cor¬ruption plays an important role in undermining com¬mitment to taxation, both in principle and in practice”. The perceived level of corruption among tax offi¬cials is substantially lower in Southern Africa compared with East and West Africa. Improving transparency and accountability among revenue authorities must re¬main a cornerstone of efforts to strengthen domestic rev¬enue generation. Improving popular access to informa¬tion about taxes people owe and about public spending, while reducing corruption and misuse of public monies will help encourage volun¬tary compliance and en¬hance government revenue generation. Key findings in the sur¬vey are that distrust in the conduct of tax officials in¬creases tolerance for tax avoidance in principle, and reported non-compliance with tax obligations in prac¬tice; while majority says it is difficult to find how govern¬ments use tax revenue. With a sample of 43,500 representing the views of half the African population, six in ten people surveyed say it is difficult to know how much tax they pay and seven in ten do not know how the government spends the taxes. Aiko said, “Afrobarom¬eter’s findings suggest that Africans are largely on board: people affirm that na¬tional development should be built on a foundation of domestic taxation, rather than relying solely on other sources of revenue. Moreo¬ver, tax authorities enjoy widespread –and growing –legitimacy among African citizens. Significant num¬bers also affirm the impor¬tance of compliance with tax obligations, although there is still a divide as to whether non-compliance is understandable or should be treated as a punishable offence.” Nengak Daniel Gon¬dyi, programme manager, CLEEN Foundation, said what the survey suggests is to do more to make the people increase their trust in revenue agencies. “In West Africa, 9 percent say there is no corruption amongst tax officials in Nige¬ria, only 2 percent say there is no corruption among tax officials. Majority say that tax officials are corrupt,” Gondyi said, while adding that the goal of the survey was to give the public a voice in influenc¬ing social policies.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 00:25:39 +0000
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