The Politics of Taxation and Tax Reform in Times of Crisis: Covid-19 and Attitudes Towards Taxation in Sierra Leone
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Date
2023-08-23Author
van den Boogaard, Vanessa
Prichard, Wilson
Orgeira, Nicolas
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Abstract
A key question facing governments is whether the
pandemic has changed attitudes towards taxation and
what this means for tax reform. Given that the history of
tax policy in high-income countries reveals a link between
periods of crisis and significant shifts in attitudes towards
taxation, could the same be true in low-income countries?
Little research has been done on this potential dynamic
and taxpayer perceptions of progressive tax reform in
these contexts is not well understood.
In this paper we explore the impacts of the Covid-19
pandemic on attitudes toward taxation and unpack
what the crisis reveals about the dynamics and politics
of taxation. We use novel survey data from Sierra
Leone collected before the pandemic, shortly after the
pandemic’s onset, and for almost a year afterwards. Summary of Working Paper 166.