BUILDING TAX CULTURE,
COMPLIANCE AND
CITIZENSHIP
A GLOBAL SOURCE BOOK ON
TAXPAYER EDUCATION
Structure
1. Background and context:
– The OECD and the Task Force on Tax and Development?
– Why does the OECD work on taxpayer education?
2. The global source book on taxpayer education:
– Content
– Lessons learnt
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1. Background and context: The Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
= promote public policies that will improve the economic and
social well-being of people around the world.
= forum in which governments can work together to share
experiences and seek solutions to common problems, e.g. peer
review mechanisms.
set international standards on a wide range of issues, from
agriculture and tax to the safety of chemicals.
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1. Background and context:
The OECD Task Force on Tax and Development
• Creation: 2010
• Flexible membership from OECD countries; developing
countries; international and regional organisations; civil
society; business
• Objective is to create an enhanced enabling environment to
assist developing countries collect taxes effectively and fairly.
• Bi-annual workplan proposed by the Task Force and agreed by
OECD committees, including work on state-building, taxation
and capacity building
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1. Background and context:
Why Tax and Development?
= Many Countries will not Raise the Tax Needed to Meet the Millennium
Development Goals
Some countries (including half of sub Saharan Africa countries) raise less
than 17% of GDP in tax revenues, the minimum level considered by the UN as
necessary to achieve the MDGs.
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1. Background and context:
2012 OECD report « What drives tax morale? »
• Examines the attitudes and perceptions of citizens in developed and
developing countries to taxation and tax evasion
 Based on World Values Survey, Afrobarometer, Asiabarometer and Latinobarometro
data
• Attitudes towards taxation are shaped by factors beyond enforcement and
the probability of being caught for tax evasion.
 Socio-economic factors (education, gender, income, employment, age, and religious
beliefs) influence tax morale.
 Institutional factors, such as trust in government and satisfaction with public services
and the functioning of democracy
• Link between Tax Morale and tax compliance
Task Force requested to compile and disseminate effective practices in
taxpayer education leading to the preparation of a source book
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2. Global Source Book on Taxpayer Education
Content
• 28 different innovative country approaches to taxpayer education :
Bangladesh
Bhutan
Brasil
Burundi
Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
El Salvador
Estonia
Guatemala
Jamaïca
Kenya
Korea
Lebanon
Malaysia
Mauritius
Mexico
Morocco
Mozambique
Nigeria
Peru
Rwanda
Senegal
Singapur
South Africa
Turkey
Uruguay
Zambia
• 5 – page chapters including objectives of programme, focus on specific
initiative, impact, lessons learnt.
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2. Global Source Book on Taxpayer Education
Content
• Taxpayer education to:
– Strengthen the state-citizen relationship
– Address the informal sector
– Promote voluntary compliance and social cohesion
• Leading to a transformation of the tax authorities and linking tax
compliance to citizenship and values of cohesive democratic societies
• 2013 OECD study on « Aid Modalities for Strengthening Tax Systems »
confirms taxpayer education as an effective mechanism to rebuild trust
and stimulate citizen participaiotn in the public debate.
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2. Global Source Book on Taxpayer Education
a range of themes
• Raising awareness and making life easier:
– Raise public’s awareness of new tax laws and methods of filing, to
answer the public’s inquiries and to make life easier for taxpayers. e.g.
Lebanon, Zambia, South Africa, Korea
• Tackling the informal sector:
– Broadening the tax base to reduce informality and non-payment of
tax. e.g. persuade small traders to register for value added tax
(Burundi) or get into the habit of asking for official receipts
• Reaching the next generation;
– Insertion of taxpayer educaiton in school and university curricula. e.g.
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Morocco, Mexico, Brasil
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2. Global Source Book on Taxpayer Education
a range of approaches
• Tax in cyberspace
– Resource optimisation through ICT use. e.g. El Salvador, Chile, Uruguay
• Tax at the games room and on TV
– tax can be explained through interactive play spaces, theatre, video
games, and soap operas on television . E.g. Malaysia, Nigeria
• Celebrating tax: tax days and festivals
– Bangladesh celebrates National Income Tax Day
– Guatemala’s annual citizen culture festival “Strength Lies in Numbers”
– Rwanda’s Taxpayer’s Day
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2. Global Source Book on Taxpayer Education
Keys to success?
• Solid partnerships - domestically, regionally and even internationally:
– long-term, sustainable cultural change requires building solid alliances
with the education sector , on condition of identification of common
goals.
– In Latin America alone, nine countries have included tax education in
their school syllabi
– Other useful partners can be business and civil society (Jamaica, Rwanda,
Brasil)
• Tax Champions - High-level political commitment and participation
• Promote cross-country learning – ATAF , CIAT, IOTA
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2. Global Source Book on Taxpayer Education
Obstacles and Challenges for the future?
• Limited time, financial and human resources
• ICT’s might bring new sorts of problems:
• Nobody else will provide taxpayer education
• Little ‘hard’ evidence of success or impact evaluations, how to measure
behavioural change?
• What is the role for development co-operation?
• How to make revenue-expenditure linkages ‘concrete’?
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2. Global Source Book on Taxpayer Education
Some examples
• South Africa – Mobile Tax Units
• Mozambique – Annual campaign and simplified tax for small taxpayers
• Rwanda _ Taxpayer day, tax advisory councils
• Morocco – taxpayer education at school through theatre, media campaigns
• Korea – tax classes for small businesses
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