Does tax pressure justify informality in sub-Saharan Africa?[La pression fiscale justifie-t-elle l'informalité en Afrique subsaharienne ?]

Informality is an obstacle to economic development. Liberal authors associate it with clandestine operations carried out with the aim of evading public regulations, the costs of which are considered exorbitant. This paper aims to examine the effects of fiscal pressure on the size of the informal economy in Sub-Saharan Africa. To better achieve this objective, an empirical approach was adopted on a panel of 30 countries in this region over the period 2000-2017. The variables of tax pressure and informality were measured respectively by an intuitive indicator, i.e. the ratio of tax revenue to GDP, and by the size of the informal economy as a percentage of GDP observed on the basis of the multiple indicators multiple causes model (MIMIC). The estimates were carried out using a dynamic panel model by the system generalized method of moments and reveal the existence of positive effects of the tax pressure on informality. These effects are much more pronounced in low-income countries than in middle-income countries in the robustness checks of different income groups. In these countries, the informal sector is characterized by small production units with low sales. Excessive tax regulations suffocate these entrepreneurs, who prefer to remain in the informal sector or take refuge in it because of the complexity of procedures and tax harassment. The ensuing economic policy implications concern, on the one hand, the stimulation of aggregate demand by governments, by prioritizing social spending to enable businesses to increase their production levels and obtain consistent profits that will enable them to bear the tax burden, and on the other hand, the simplification of registration procedures, the reduction of formalization costs and the digitization of the tax collection process.