USAID’s Leadership in Public Financial Management Project: The Collecting Taxes Database

The database contains high-level performance and structural indicators that enable international comparisons of tax systems, comparing tax system performance, structure, and tax administration. The database is divided into four categories: tax revenue performance, tax structure, tax administrative structure, and economic structure. Tax revenue performance indicators provide a sense of how effectively the tax system produces revenues, while tax structure indicators represent the substantive structure of tax law in a simplified way. Tax administrative structure indicators describe the organization and relative size of the tax administration, and economic structure indicators provide information about the economy of each country and are related to the ability of tax systems to collect taxes. The database is accessible online through the website http://egateg.usaid.gov/collecting-taxes, where users can access the latest release, view panels for the indicator categories, and download historical data. The database also provides summaries by region and income level groups, as well as individual country data. The website includes a description of the sources for the latest release, allowing users to understand the methodology behind the data. One of the key features of the database is its ability to facilitate international comparisons of tax systems. For example, the database provides data on revenue effort, which is the ratio of tax revenue to GDP. The data shows that Zambia has a revenue effort of 5.7% in 2011, compared to 3.6% for Sub-Saharan Africa Low Income Economies and 4.1% for Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. The database also provides data on tax structure, including tax rates and VAT thresholds, which can help explain revenue effort and revenue productivity. The database also provides data on revenue productivity, which is the additional tax revenue that would be raised with a 1 percentage point increase in the tax rate. The data shows that Zambia has a revenue productivity of 0.17 for PIT, 0.08 for CIT, and 0.25 for VAT. The database also provides data on the number of taxpayers per tax official, which has increased over the past three years. Some interesting facts that can be derived from the database include the relationship between income level and tax productivity. The data shows that as income level increases, CIT and PIT productivity increases, but VAT productivity does not. The database also shows that there is a clear increase in the number of taxpayers per tax official over the past three years, and that overall tax as a percentage of GDP is lower and more even across income groups. Additionally, the data shows that there is an increased reliance on PIT and social security, especially in high-income countries, and that mining/extraction revenue is significant in 20% of the countries.