IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2023-66.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Taxpayer response to greater progressivity: Evidence from personal income tax reform in Uganda

Author

Listed:
  • Maria Jouste
  • Tina Kaidu Barugahara
  • Joseph Okello Ayo
  • Jukka Pirttilä
  • Pia Rattenhuber

Abstract

We evaluate a major personal income tax reform in Uganda that came into effect in 2012-13, contributing to the scarce literature on the effects of personal income tax reform on employees' income in a low-income country in Africa. The reform increased the tax-free lower threshold, increased tax rates for higher incomes, and introduced an additional highest tax band for top 1% of income earners. Using the universe of pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) administrative data from the Uganda Tax Authority, we analyse the impact of the reform on reported labour incomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Maria Jouste & Tina Kaidu Barugahara & Joseph Okello Ayo & Jukka Pirttilä & Pia Rattenhuber, 2023. "Taxpayer response to greater progressivity: Evidence from personal income tax reform in Uganda," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2023-66, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2023-66
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-paper/PDF/wp2023-66-taxpayer-response-greater-progressivity-personal-income-tax-reform-Uganda_0.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raj Chetty, 2009. "Sufficient Statistics for Welfare Analysis: A Bridge Between Structural and Reduced-Form Methods," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 451-488, May.
    2. Jakobsen, Katrine Marie & Søgaard, Jakob Egholt, 2022. "Identifying behavioral responses to tax reforms: New insights and a new approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    3. Bohne, Albrecht & Nimczik, Jan Sebastian, 2018. "Information Frictions and Learning Dynamics: Evidence from Tax Avoidance in Ecuador," IZA Discussion Papers 11536, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Dina Pomeranz & José Vila-Belda, 2019. "Taking State-Capacity Research to the Field: Insights from Collaborations with Tax Authorities," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 755-781, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fernando Alvarez & Francesco Lippi & Roberto Robatto, 2019. "Cost of Inflation in Inventory Theoretical Models," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 32, pages 206-226, April.
    2. Annette Alstadsæter & Wojciech Kopczuk & Kjetil Telle, 2019. "Social networks and tax avoidance: evidence from a well-defined Norwegian tax shelter," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(6), pages 1291-1328, December.
    3. Ugo Colombino & Nizamul Islam, 2021. "Combining microsimulation and optimization to identify optimal universalistic tax-transfer rule," LISER Working Paper Series 2021-06, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    4. David S. Lee & Pauline Leung & Christopher J. O’Leary & Zhuan Pei & Simon Quach, 2021. "Are Sufficient Statistics Necessary? Nonparametric Measurement of Deadweight Loss from Unemployment Insurance," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(S2), pages 455-506.
    5. Arun Advani, 2022. "Who does and doesn't pay taxes?," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(1), pages 5-22, March.
    6. Nicolai V. Kuminoff & Jaren C. Pope, 2014. "Do “Capitalization Effects” For Public Goods Reveal The Public'S Willingness To Pay?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1227-1250, November.
    7. Takanori Adachi & Michal Fabinger, 2017. "Multi-Dimensional Pass-Through, Incidence, and the Welfare Burden of Taxation in Oligopoly," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1040, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    8. Hongxing Liu & Wendong Zhang & Elena Irwin & Jeffrey Kast & Noel Aloysius & Jay Martin & Margaret Kalcic, 2020. "Best Management Practices and Nutrient Reduction: An Integrated Economic-Hydrologic Model of the Western Lake Erie Basin," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 96(4), pages 510-530.
    9. Steffen Andersen & Cristian Badarinza & Lu Liu & Julie Marx & Tarun Ramadorai, 2022. "Reference Dependence in the Housing Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(10), pages 3398-3440, October.
    10. Adrien Auclert, 2019. "Monetary Policy and the Redistribution Channel," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(6), pages 2333-2367, June.
    11. Malgouyres, Clément & Mayer, Thierry & Mazet-Sonilhac, Clément, 2021. "Technology-induced trade shocks? Evidence from broadband expansion in France," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    12. Alex Rees-Jones & Dmitry Taubinsky, 2018. "Taxing Humans: Pitfalls of the Mechanism Design Approach and Potential Resolutions," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 107-133.
    13. Kocherlakota, Narayana R., 2019. "Practical policy evaluation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 29-45.
    14. Lemoine, Derek, 2020. "General equilibrium rebound from energy efficiency innovation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    15. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2018. "Identification in Macroeconomics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(3), pages 59-86, Summer.
    16. Sonia Jaffe & Anup Malani, 2017. "The Welfare Implications of Health Insurance," Working Papers 2017-045, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    17. Francisco Costa & François Gerard, 2021. "Hysteresis and the Welfare Effect of Corrective Policies: Theory and Evidence from an Energy-Saving Program," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(6), pages 1705-1743.
    18. Jonas Kolsrud & Camille Landais & Peter Nilsson & Johannes Spinnewijn, 2018. "The Optimal Timing of Unemployment Benefits: Theory and Evidence from Sweden," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(4-5), pages 985-1033, April.
    19. Joseph G. Altonji & Ching-I Huang & Christopher R. Taber, 2015. "Estimating the Cream Skimming Effect of School Choice," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(2), pages 266-324.
    20. Christopher Conlon & Julie Holland Mortimer, 2021. "Empirical properties of diversion ratios," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 52(4), pages 693-726, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Personal income tax; Uganda; Administrative data; Tax reform;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C31 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions; Social Interaction Models
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • O23 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2023-66. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.