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TAZMOD – simulating tax and benefit policies for development in Tanzania
The TAZMOD model is freely accessible for non-commercial research use. You may request access to the model here.
TAZMOD, the tax-benefit microsimulation model for Tanzania, is a highly versatile yet easy to use tool for policymakers and researchers alike. It allows the user to analyse and compare the effects of different benefit policy scenarios on poverty, inequality, and government revenues. The model applies user-defined tax and benefit policy rules to micro-data on individuals and households and calculates the effects of these rules on household income.
With TAZMOD, users can simulate reforms of the Tanzanian tax and benefit system. They can estimate, for example, the number of beneficiaries and analyse the characteristics of the prospective recipients of a hypothetical benefit. TAZMOD also allows users to implement hypothetical income tax and social security reforms and calculate their effects on inequality and the government budget. Existing policies or past policy reforms can be evaluated as well.
TAZMOD can answer for example following questions:
- Do the prospective recipients of a new cash transfer work in the formal or informal sector?
- How much would such a policy cost?
- How could tax rates be increased to offset the additional expenditures on social protection?
Possible policy reform simulations in TAZMOD include for example:
- a universal child benefit
- a universal pension payment to the elderly
- a youth unemployment benefit
However, the model allows the simulation of a multitude of other policy reforms as well.
TAZMOD has been developed in cooperation with the Department of Economics of the University of Dar es Salaam and Southern African Social Policy Research Insights (SASPRI). The latest version of TAZMOD is based on the Tanzania Household Budget Surveys from 2011-12 and 2017-18, allowing for representative results at the national level for Tanzania mainland. Policies are simulated for the years 2012 and 2015-23.
The first training course on TAZMOD was organized in Dar es Salaam in September 2017 including participants from the Tanzanian government and researchers. Three additional training events followed in 2018, 2020 and in 2021. The model has raised substantial interest among various governmental departments in Tanzania. To respond to this demand, the 2022 and 2023 training events took place as research retreats, with the aim to empower participants to use the model to answer specific policy questions and to develop policy notes based on model simulations.