International Centre for Tax and Development

After completing the last module for our Research on Tax and Development course, our students are now finalising their research proposals before submitting them for grading in December. 📽️While in Accra, we interviewed some students to collect their feedback on the course. Listen to what they had to say ⬇️ Joan A. Atim | Thomas B. Kanneh | Linet Mutegi | Fortunatus BONIRE #TaxExperts #Taxation #TaxCourse #OnlineCouse #ResearchCourse

📬 Have you seen the latest edition of ICTD Insights? We roundup our latest research and analyses -- from the potential of digital public infrastructure in tax administration, to the latest in global tax governance, and much more. Read it here 👉 https://ow.ly/aLxe50TXi04 Don't miss the next one! Subscribe 👉 https://ow.ly/40Sn50QxVQI #TaxExperts #TaxResearch

🏙️ From mounting infrastructure gaps to poor service delivery, to general economic instability, #cities, particularly in the global South, face a host of critical development challenges and addressing these requires significant investment. This #WorldCitiesDay, the Local Government Revenue Initiative (LoGRI), an initiative of ICTD, highlights how subnational property taxes can support urban development. Read it here ➡️ https://ow.ly/kvfO50TX8NG 📸Bunting Kargbo/iStock #UrbanOctober #Taxation #TaxExperts

🤔 How can information technology (#IT) streamline property tax reforms? With #WorldCitiesDay coming up, we’re resharing some essential readings on subnational finance and property taxation. Promising enhanced local capacity, administrative efficiency, and transparency, the introduction of IT systems are frequently heralded as a powerful tool for property tax reformers in developing countries. 🔴 In practice, however, these efforts frequently fall short of their potential due to political resistance, complexity, high costs, and imperfect implementation. In this summary brief, Wilson Prichard and Paul Fish provide a valuable reminder that property tax reform is a fundamentally political process. Technological and political solutions should go hand-in-hand for reform to be truly effective and sustainable. Read it here ➡️ https://ow.ly/pZbp50TTac6 📸 rawpixel.com/freepik #TaxExperts #Taxation #UrbanOctober | Local Government Revenue Initiative (LoGRI)

🌆 As #cities face growing financial pressures, #PropertyTaxes can offer governments a way to raise much-needed revenue from their citizens, instead of relying on foreign aid or natural resource rents. By levying taxes on residents, local governments have more fiscal autonomy and a greater ability to respond to citizens’ needs. Despite these benefits, property taxes often underperform in developing countries, and efforts to reform existing practices often face fierce political resistance. 🌍 As we head into #WorldCitiesDay, we’re resharing earlier research providing insights on why some property tax reform initiatives have gained support and not others, and how policymakers can build such initiatives that are more likely to survive and thrive ➡️ https://ow.ly/gtyn50TT9eI #TaxExperts #Taxation #UrbanOctober | Samuel Sangawulo Jibao | Wilson Prichard | Local Government Revenue Initiative (LoGRI) | UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlements Programme)

📣New IDS Bulletin published: Reimagining Social Protection. Edited by: Stephen Devereux, Jeremy Lind Keetie Roelen and Rachel Sabates-Wheeler from BASIC Research The research in the issue argue that Social protection needs urgent reimagining in the light of growing pressures and opportunities. It looks at three broad themes that are increasingly defining the trajectory of social protection policy, programming, and research: the politics of social protection policy processes; social protection in crisis settings; and inclusive and innovative social protection. Contributions to this IDS Bulletin emerged from an international conference on ‘Reimagining Social Protection in a Time of Global Uncertainty’, organised by the Centre for Social Protection. The conference was generously funded by UK aid through the Better Assistance in Crises (BASIC) Research programme, and by support from Irish Aid. Read at: 👉https://lnkd.in/eZZunnyf

In Partnership with the International Centre for Tax and Development and the Local Government Revenue Initiative (LoGRI), the ACTG is hosting a stakeholder engagement on property taxation in Nigeria. The meeting is aimed at discussing challenges and opportunities for property taxation in Nigeria with case studies of Niger, Kaduna and Ekiti States. The meeting has in attendance the Heads and directors of the three states of study, participants from Lagos State, Cross River State, Ondo State and the FCT. Additionally, there are participants from International Budget Partnership , CSEA, Nigerian Governors Forum, FIRS, WATAF FAFOA and others.

🌍 In the lead up to #WorldCitiesDay, we’re revisiting some key resources highlighting the benefits of subnational property taxation. Cities in the Global South need significant resources to confront complex challenges, such as economic instability, housing shortages, and climate change. Property taxes are increasingly recognised as an ideal source of funding for local governments, as they can have immense revenue potential, clear links to public service delivery, and built-in progressivity. 📚 In 'How Property Tax Would Benefit Africa', Nara Monkam and Mick Moore discuss the central features of property taxation and its relationship to state-building and local governance. Read it here ➡️ https://ow.ly/rgn950TT7OX 📸 Sebastian Brock Loeven/iStock #TaxExperts #Taxation #UrbanOctober | Local Government Revenue Initiative | UN-Habitat (United Nations Human Settlements Programme)

Why don’t governments collect more tax revenue❓ This question is particularly relevant to lower income countries as many of their governments collect only a small proportion of their respective GDPs, sometimes less than 10%. But their needs for more development finance seem to be very pressing. Tax specialists have been wrestling with this question for a long time and yet have not been able to produce thorough or convincing answers. That alone should tell us that the reasons are complex, and that new understanding is more likely to emerge slowly, following careful enquiry, than through sudden revelations. We have however some new insights into this question. While there is very little public information on the tax collection process, decisions are typically made by a small number of senior public servants and one or two senior politicians in ministries of finance. In our latest blog, our Professorial Fellow, Mick Moore, and Kenya School of Revenue Administration (KESRA)'s Dean, Bernard Baimwera, present a generalisation based on a wide variety of sources, including anecdotes and hints from people who have been more closely involved. Read it here ➡️https://ow.ly/Z6oR50TTA2B 📸Craig Heimburger/Flickr #Taxation #TaxExperts #TaxCollection #DevelopmentFinance Institute of Development Studies

🔔Time for our monthly #BookRecommendations! 📚The October list was selected by our Research Fellow Max Gallien who decided to share 4 of the novels that have brought him the most joy recently, in the hopes that they have the same effect on those who choose to read one of them ⬇️ 1️⃣'Dear Committee Members' by Julie Schumacher Told entirely through a series of increasingly unhinged letters of recommendation by a beleaguered professor of creative writing at an American University, this is a funny send up of the type of university life that is increasingly crowded out by marketisation and managerialism, and an ode to the small spaces of humanity that can hold out in the cracks of institutional structures and fumigated literature departments. 2️⃣'Brand New Ancients' by Kae Tempest Originally a spoken word performance, a fast, rhythmic and vivid story of gods and men, told with the symbolism of Greek myths and the imagery of today's world (before the rise of 5 different streaming shows about modern day greek gods). Kae Tempest's music, rap, spoken word and poetry are all in their own way overwhelming, an assault of earnestness and rhythm and instinct all pulled together by empathy - this was one of their first pieces, and is still my favourite. 3️⃣'A Place of Greater Safety' by Hilary Mantel The story of the French revolution told through the relationship between Danton, Desmoulins and Robespierre, their relationships, ambitions, paranoias. An old tale that reads as inherently modern, both in its prose and in the way it gets up and close with its illustrious characters. Great for everyone who loved Wolf Hall, and for everyone who's been scared off by its scope or its focus on Tudor England. 4️⃣'Measuring the World' by Daniel Kehlmann This was a huge hit in Germany in the early 2000s and has remained one of the most read books - perhaps surprisingly, as it spends quite a lot of its pages poking fun at what the country sees as its intellectual history and heritage. Telling the stories of Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Friedrich Gauss, it ponders the relationship between science and power, whether we have to see the world to measure it, and whether one of the founders of empirical geography engaged in cannibalism. It's criminal that Kehlmann is not read more outside of Germany. ❗Did you know that Max is an author himself? Check his book 'Smugglers and States: Negotiating the Maghreb at its Margins' here ➡️https://lnkd.in/ez8Y5Uzn #BookLover #BookCommunity #BookReview