About
Tax research for development – lessons from Uganda

This project analyses administrative tax data in Uganda to provide knowledge for better policymaking to mobilize public revenue for inclusive economic development.

The project conducts new, policy-relevant research based on the empirical analysis of administrative tax data in partnership with the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA). The research outputs of the programme are intended to assist policymakers as they develop and implement policy tools to improve development prospects in their country. An important additional goal of the programme is to develop institutional and individual capacity to use administrative data for ongoing economic research and policy calibration.

UNU-WIDER collaborates with the research division of the URA, where administrative data, obtained directly from URA’s e-filing systems, can be accessed for research purposes. This work was initiated first in 2018, with financial support from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland in 2018–19 in the first phase of the tax research programme.

In 2022, as part of the DRM programme and phase 2 of the tax research programme, UNU-WIDER established a secure research lab jointly with URA. The collated, quality-assured, and anonymized administrative tax data is available for external researchers by request in this lab. 

This co-operation is a subcomponent of the UNU-WIDER project Tax research for development. In Uganda, the co-operation also covers tax-benefit microsimulation work done under the SOUTHMOD project. Both projects are part of UNU-WIDER's programme on Domestic Revenue Mobilization (DRM), which is financed by the Norwegian development co-operation agency Norad.

Key questions

• How has the digitalization of value-added tax (VAT) and administration of VAT refunds impacted firm growth and behaviour?
• What is the role of tax audits in ensuring effective and efficient tax collection?
• How have tax and administration policy changes shifted tax compliance and tax revenue for small businesses?
• What kind of tax optimization opportunities do small- and medium-sized enterprises have and how much are they leveraged?