‘The Evolving ‘Thunder’: The Challenges Around Imposing the Digital Tax in Developing African Countries

This paper addresses the challenges of taxing the digital economy and offers potential solutions towards aligning the digital economy by redefining the tax rules governing traditional businesses. The methodology employed is purely descriptive and explanatory highlighting specific countries and their approach to taxing the digital economy. The literature addressed in the paper focuses on recent government responses in highlighting the problem with digital taxation and identifying the key areas requiring policy recommendations, which the paper then offers to provide. Although several academic works have addressed the challenges of taxing the digital economy, there has been little systematic description on what policy recommendations ought to be made that would provide an effective template for developing African countries to rely on in enacting their own laws. This paper amends this omission

A case study on the application of human rights principles in health policy making and programming in Chereng any sub county in Kenya

This study examined the application of human rights principles in health policymaking and programming in Cherang’any sub-county. This sub-county has suffered from long standing discrimination and exclusion from the progressive realization of the right to health. Its residents continue to live on less than USD 1 a day. Under the burden of income and redistribution inequality and inequity, they lack readily and easily available, accessible, acceptable and quality healthcare and health systems. This has been as a result of failure by the national government to include them in participating towards the formulation and making of health policy and towards the implementation of health programmes at the sub-county level which reflects the type of healthcare the residents require following basic healthcare. Further, the lack of financial and administrative accountability, along with the lack of governance transparency in the provision of healthcare towards the residents of the sub-county, has in turn affected the health rights, opportunities and healthcare advancements available to them. Lack of basic infrastructure such as electricity, tarmac road networks, equipped medical facilities, water and lack of the means of transportation have further exacerbated the violation of their right to health. Accordingly, with the promulgation of the Kenyan Constitution in 2010 which seeks to advance socio and economic rights, the government committed to provide every citizen with the highest attainable standard of health, which includes the right to healthcare services including reproductive healthcare. In furtherance of this commitment, the government in 2013 developed its Kenya Health Sector Strategic and Investment Plan (KHSSPI) in order to entrench human rights principles in health policymaking and programming. This plan requires that healthcare be improved within the context of the human rights principles of accessibility, availability, affordability and quality of healthcare along with health financing, and participation of minorities. This study examined the extent to which these principles in health policymaking and programming have been applied in Chereng’any

Black money whitening law: a study from Bangladesh

Tax avoidance and evasion are deeply entrenched in Bangladesh, where 37% of GDP comes from ‘black money’. In this country of massive tax evasion, black money is not seen as tax evasion. Instead, tax amnesties are offered to whiten black money in an attempt to raise funds that revenue collectors would otherwise have found difficult or impossible to capture. The evidence on which this policy brief builds was obtained through field research, interviews in particular

In pursuit of financial justice : local African communities’ quest for legal redress against business-related human rights abuses

Mining corporations in Africa stand accused of violating human rights. This article gives a voice to the plight suffered by local African communities in accessing justice to remedy the violation of their human rights as a result of the business activities of mining corporations. It focuses specifically on the right to access justice in order to ask whether the affected communities get a fair and effective share of financial remedies to mitigate against the violation of their rights to health, clean environment and property. It examines two separate and independent avenues through which local communities access justice and asks which of the two, judicial or non-judicial approaches, guarantee these local communities a right to be heard and a recourse to financial remedies

The tax collection capacity of Afghanistan : an answer in the light of rampant tax evasion practices

Afghanistan has taken a number of measures to combat tax evasion, however, they have not led to strengthening tax compliance in the country. This is due to the prevalence of economic crimes and the weaknesses in the state’s tax model. This article argues that these problems present the greatest hurdle in Afghanistan's quest towards a tax compliant society. By considering Kabul and Kandahar as its case study provinces, the article employs several methods to investigate tax evasion practices in the two provinces. In doing so, twelve indicators were developed as constructs to identify instances of tax evasion. The intention of this article is not to provide a comprehensive overview of estimates of every tax evasion component, nor of every tax evasion channel, but to specifically identify the common tax evasion practices in the two provinces. The findings suggest that as a result of the hierarchisation of the Afghan tribal society, the state co-opted tribal leaders and appointed them as local representatives, in charge of gathering taxes and duties from fellow tribesmen. This, the interviews revealed, has resulted in an obstacle for the state as the only sovereign with the monopoly to collect tax. Particularly in instances where the tribal leaders go far beyond their duty to collect tax and not remit it to the state. The resulting fragmented political structure that sits between local tribal leaders and state institutions have made it difficult for the Afghan government to get the local communities to remit taxes. Interviews with government officers, individuals and corporations in Kabul and Kandahar confirm that the rise of the underground economy due to poverty, warlord directives, contest between state and tribal leadership and insecurity has contributed to high incidences of smuggling, trade in narcotics, corruption, and money laundering. Political interference further prevents full disclosure on transactions and weak implementation of reporting standards

Improving livelihood at household level with zakat based conscious financing

This paper explores spending zakat to support the financial improvement of women from low- or no-income households. It assesses the feasibility of remitting zakat over the m-pesa platform. M-pesa is a Kenyan mobile banking app that allows subscribers to send and receive money through their mobile phones without the use of the internet. The theory underpinning the paper’s analysis on the use of zakat to support the economic improvement of women is based on tax justice and social extraction. Taken together these theories suggest that redistribution can also be facilitated by non-state actors who apply their own norms in regulating how to spend their collective revenue towards improving lives. As such, the paper therefore, starts the discussion by highlighting the need for redistribution using taxes, extends the conception of conventional tax to include zakat and justifies this position by interrogating whether the Kenyan fiscal space and its constitution can recognise zakat as part of tax system that supports the state to promote social and economic wellbeing. Whether zakat contributes to the social and economic improvement of people is examined by inquiring into a specific case study of Mama Riziki. The paper employs the discursive approach and is based on a mixed methods approach. The findings reveal that zakat based conscious financing can improve livelihoods at a household level

The taxation of financial technology in Africa

About 1.7 billion adults remain unbanked and almost all the unbanked adults live in developing countries (Global Findex Database 2017). This gap has been filled by mobile phones and the internet that have created new opportunities for providing financial services to the unbanked. Consequently, 58% (765 million) of sub-Saharan Africans now have registered mobile accounts (Mauritius Africa FinTech Hub), which they use as payment, lending and remittances platforms. The development of mobile phones from simple text messaging and provision of mobile money accounts to the creation of apps through which access to credit, cross border transfers, remittances, and issuance of digital currency is facilitated has transformed the structure of the financial industry in Africa. The use of technology for the provision of financial services has changed the way Africans store, save, borrow, invest, move, spend and protect money (Skan, Dickerson and Gagliardi 2016). Gallup data collected by McKinsey & Company in 2014 on 44 nations in sub-Saharan Africa showed that an average of 54% of adults utilised FinTech to make payments totalling approximately 5 billion transactions annually. The total volume of these flows was estimated at $760 billion (of which 50-60$6.6 billion from electronic payments alone. It is now estimated that the FinTech industry in Africa by 2022 will contribute between $200 million to$3 billion in revenues annually. This demonstrates that the correlation between FinTech and revenue mobilisation is quite strong. It thus becomes necessary to understand whether and how FinTech in Africa is taxed. This working paper discusses two interrelated themes: the regulation and subsequent taxation of FinTech. It is argued that the domestic and international regulatory framework within which FinTech operates guides its tax architecture. Whether it is then advisable to adopt a common African approach to the regulation and taxation of FinTech or to advocate for individual African nations to enact bespoke FinTech laws is the core aim that this working paper sets out to discuss

The tax collection capacity of Afghanistan : an answer in the light of rampant tax evasion practices

Afghanistan has taken a number of measures to combat tax evasion, however, they have not led to strengthening tax compliance in the country. This is due to the prevalence of economic crimes and the weaknesses in the state’s tax model. This article argues that these problems present the greatest hurdle in Afghanistan's quest towards a tax compliant society. By considering Kabul and Kandahar as its case study provinces, the article employs several methods to investigate tax evasion practices in the two provinces. In doing so, twelve indicators were developed as constructs to identify instances of tax evasion. The intention of this article is not to provide a comprehensive overview of estimates of every tax evasion component, nor of every tax evasion channel, but to specifically identify the common tax evasion practices in the two provinces. The findings suggest that as a result of the hierarchisation of the Afghan tribal society, the state co-opted tribal leaders and appointed them as local representatives, in charge of gathering taxes and duties from fellow tribesmen. This, the interviews revealed, has resulted in an obstacle for the state as the only sovereign with the monopoly to collect tax. Particularly in instances where the tribal leaders go far beyond their duty to collect tax and not remit it to the state. The resulting fragmented political structure that sits between local tribal leaders and state institutions have made it difficult for the Afghan government to get the local communities to remit taxes. Interviews with government officers, individuals and corporations in Kabul and Kandahar confirm that the rise of the underground economy due to poverty, warlord directives, contest between state and tribal leadership and insecurity has contributed to high incidences of smuggling, trade in narcotics, corruption, and money laundering. Political interference further prevents full disclosure on transactions and weak implementation of reporting standards

The tax collection capacity of Afghanistan: an answer in the light of rampant tax ‎evasion practices

Afghanistan has taken a number of measures to combat tax evasion, however, they have not led to strengthening tax compliance in the country. This is due to the prevalence of economic crimes and the weaknesses in the state’s tax model. ‎This article argues that these problems present the greatest ‎hurdle in Afghanistan's quest towards a tax compliant society. By considering Kabul and ‎Kandahar as its case study provinces, the article employs several methods to investigate tax ‎evasion practices in the two provinces. In doing so, twelve indicators were developed as ‎constructs to identify instances of tax evasion. ‎The intention of this article is not to provide a comprehensive overview of estimates of ‎every tax evasion component, nor of every tax evasion channel, but to specifically identify ‎the common tax evasion practices in the two provinces. The findings suggest that as a result ‎of the hierarchisation of the Afghan tribal society, the state co-opted tribal leaders and ‎appointed them as local representatives, in charge of gathering taxes and duties from ‎fellow tribesmen. This, the interviews revealed, has resulted in an obstacle for the state as ‎the only sovereign with the monopoly to collect tax. Particularly in instances where the ‎tribal leaders go far beyond their duty to collect tax and not remit it to the state. The ‎resulting fragmented political structure that sits between local tribal leaders and state ‎institutions have made it difficult for the Afghan government to get the local communities to ‎remit taxes. Interviews with government officers, individuals and corporations in Kabul ‎and Kandahar confirm that the rise of the underground economy due to poverty, warlord ‎directives, contest between state and tribal leadership and insecurity has contributed to ‎high incidences of smuggling, trade in narcotics, corruption, and money laundering. ‎Political interference further prevents full disclosure on transactions and weak ‎implementation of reporting standards.

Towards establishing fiscal legitimacy through settled fiscal principles in global health financing

Scholarship on international health law is currently pushing the boundaries while taking stock of achievements made over the past few decades. However despite the forward thinking approach of scholars working in the field of global health one area remains a stumbling block in the path to achieving the right to health universally: the financing of heath. This paper uses the book Global Health Law by Larry Gostin to reflect and take stock of the fiscal support provided to the right to health from both a global and an African perspective. It then sets out the key fiscal challenges facing global and African health and proposes an innovative solution for consideration: use of the domestic principles of tax to design the global health financing system