Tax Justice network . taking a step towards achieving Tax Justice in East Africa through citizen.driven actions

In recent years taxation regimes in developing countries have begun to attract serious attention in the development arena. While developed countries have had effectively designed tax systems that guarantee resource mobilization and utilization to accelerate socio.economic growth and welfare creation many developing countries especially in Sub.Saharan Africa lag behind. Performance in tax revenue generation in many African states is relatively low compared to the developed economies. African countries over the last few years have improved revenue collection with tax to GDP ratio increasing from a low of 15% in the 1980s to an average of 20% which is still comparatively low in comparison to OECD countries that have an average of 35%. The potential of African countries to increase their tax revenue is hampered by a number of factors which are mostly domestic but international factors related to the global financial landscape also play a role. A bid to attract foreign capital and investment has led governments to engage in ?a race to the bottom? with governments providing a wide range of tax incentives to businesses. Studies have however illustrated the large scope of revenue losses. The East African Community approximately loses up to US $2.8 billion a year from all tax incentives and exemptions.2 These revenue losses deprive the countries of critical resources needed for poverty reduction and economic development. The debate on taxation as a development tool is still relatively new particularly in Africa where development financing is still heavily dependent on external borrowing foreign aid and revenue from natural resources. The dialogue is still quite new among African Civil Society and there are hardly discussions focusing on pro.poor taxation for sustainable development. Taxation has also been viewed as a technical and specialist field and hence received limited interest. Many CSOs lack the technical knowledge and skills to engage in advocacy on national and international tax policies that support development. The trend is not any different in East Africa and hence the need to undertake activities aimed at creating awareness and promoting citizen participation in the advocacy for fair taxation