Vanessa van den Boogaard
Research Fellow, International Centre for Tax and Development
at the University of Toronto and Institute of Development Studies
Papers under review
Catch them if you can: The politics and practice of a taxpayer registration exercise (with Max Gallien and Giovanni Occhiali)
Tax registration drives have become an increasingly popular intervention to expand the coverage of tax nets across Sub-Saharan Africa. However, doubts have recently been casted on their impacts, as there is increasing evidence that they do not lead to substantial revenue increase and might skew the tax registry towards overrepresenting vulnerable groups. Little explanation for these outcomes is available for why this is the case, as the literature focuses on the outcomes of these exercises rather than on their processes and premises. We seek to fill this gap through an evaluation of a tax registration exercise of small and medium-sized enterprises in Freetown, Sierra Leone implemented by the National Revenue Authority. We argue that the conflicting objectives between national and international stakeholders, as well as between street- and higher-level officials, combined with a technocratic view of the exercise which underestimate its political nature, led to its likely unsatisfactory outcome in revenue terms. However, we also identify non-revenue outcomes that may still be seen as positive from the perspectives of policymakers, such as familiarising many businesses with a revenue authority they previously had very little engagement with. While this outcome of registration exercises is frequently overlooked by similar evaluations, it is one that local officials recognize as important in “building future taxpayers”.
The politics of passage: Roadblocks, taxation, and control in conflict (with Max Gallien, Peer Schouten, Shalaka Thakur, and Florian Weigand)
From Afghanistan and Yemen and from Mali to Somalia, research shows, roadblocks are central to dynamics of armed conflict, funding insurgents, driving violence and shaping the forms of order espoused by various types of armed actors, state and non-state alike. Despite increasing evidence, roadblocks and the forms of circulation they interact with have not yet received the theoretical attention they deserve and are often overlooked in debates over what drives conflict and how we should understand order in areas of contested statehood. Our premise is that a focus on checkpoints has the potential to enrich engrained approaches to conflict and order-making because roadblocks represent a window into dynamics of authority and power that only partially follow the script of ‘stateness’ as it is usually understood: as revolving around claims to territory and the population or resources within it. This paper, which introduces the working paper series Roadblocks and revenues, argues that checkpoints constitute a distinct claim to authority with their own logic and effects on conflict dynamics and political order-making. We coin the idea of the ‘politics of passage’, which refers to the mutually constitutive struggles over movement and authority that play out at roadblocks in fragile and conflict-affected settings. We propose that attending to the politics of passage means exploring how both authority and passage—and through them trade and revenues, as well as mobility and order—are contingent on the sometimes routinised, sometimes unpredictable processes of negotiation that take place at checkpoint encounters. We provide a definition of roadblocks, explore the historicity of circulation struggles in relation to state formation, and outline a new research agenda on roadblocks, advancing debates on state-building, war economies, informal taxation, global value chains and rebel governance, offering reflections from existing research and avenues for future work.
The political economy of taxation in Somalia: Historical legacies, informal institutions, and political settlements (with Najibullah Nor Isak)
This paper investigates the political economy of weak taxation in Somalia, tracing the historical, institutional, and political factors that underpin the country’s low tax-to-GDP ratio of approximately 2%. Challenging conventional narratives that attribute Somalia’s weak tax capacity solely to state collapse and conflict, the study situates contemporary challenges within a broader historical context of pre- and post-colonial governance structures, reliance on trade taxes, and institutionalized informality. Drawing on qualitative data from the federal government and states and comparative insights from Somaliland, the paper examines how fragmented tax authority, elite bargains, and informal tax negotiations hinder centralized tax systems. It highlights the role of political settlements in shaping the state’s limited capacity and willingness to tax, with elites leveraging tax forbearance to maintain political stability and support. The analysis argues that technocratic tax reforms often fail in conflict-affected states due to their inability to address underlying power dynamics and informal institutions. Instead, it advocates for politically aligned reforms that account for entrenched elite interests and historical legacies. By contextualizing Somalia’s taxation challenges within a political settlement framework, the study contributes to broader debates on state-building, revenue mobilization, and governance in fragile states.
Informality, tax, and markets in Kinshasa: Everyday realities and everyday resistance (with Yannick Bokasola, Eddy Ngwakoyo, and Gayatri Sahgal)
This paper explores the everyday realities of taxation in Kinshasa's markets, which play a crucial role in both local revenue generation and the livelihoods of the population. Understanding market taxation in this context is crucial given that formal state authority intersects with and is often embedded in informal institutions and governance structures and a plurality of state and non-state actors engage in revenue extraction. The study draws on qualitative data collected from eight formal, informal, and customary markets in Kinshasa, including through focus group discussions with market vendors, interviews with key actors involved in market governance and taxation, and ethnographic observations of tax collection and relationships between vendors and collectors. The research aimed to document the experiences of market vendors, their perceptions of taxation, and how these perceptions shape their interactions with the state and their willingness to pay taxes while also capturing differences in everyday experiences based on structural differences of market governance. Key findings reveal that market vendors are subject to multiple layers of formal and informal taxation, with a prevalence of coercive tax collection practices and informality in the administration of taxes. Correspondingly, vendors widely view market-based taxation as unfair, though some likewise report greater willingness to pay informal taxes because they see tangible benefits, such as protection from gangs. Formal taxes are perceived as offering few returns. In this context, everyday resistance to taxation is common, but given the vulnerable positions of most vendors and the limited channels for accountability, the paper finds few instances of a broader challenging of the tax systems or demands for reform. The study also finds distinct differences in the tax collection experiences across formal, informal, and customary markets, with market taxation led by customary authorities eliciting a greater sense of fairness and voluntary compliance. These findings contribute to the broader literature on informal institutions and taxation, providing a case study of the everyday experiences of both market vendors and tax collectors and documenting the micro-level dynamics that shape tax morale, perceptions of fairness, and resistance in a context of pluralized tax and governance authority.
Taxation and gender equity in support of the SDGs (with Anuradha Joshi, Jalia Kangave, and Sripriya Iyengar Srivatsa)
In this chapter, we consider how the tax system may contribute to gendering development and strengthening gender equity, while recognizing its limitations in doing so independent of gender-sensitive budgeting and broader underlying structural reform in society. In the next section, we identify three promising entry points for the tax system to impact gender equity. First, we discuss the importance of focusing on tax administration, not just policy reform, to improve gender equity outcomes. Second, we show that rethinking current strategies to tax the informal sector can have an important impact for women, particularly lower-income women. Third, we argue that simply focusing on progressive, “good” tax policy can have an important impact on gender equity and domestic revenue mobilization. We conclude by presenting key challenges in making the tax system work for women and suggesting future research avenues.
Informal taxes fill gaps in state crisis responses: Evidence from Sierra Leone during Covid-19 (with Wilson Prichard and Nicolas Orgeira)
Bottom-up responses to the Covid-19 pandemic have been critical in supporting some of the most vulnerable groups throughout the crisis and have often served as powerful symbols of solidarity. There has been less attention paid, however, to the implications of shifting the burdens of crisis relief and social welfare provision downward to already vulnerable populations. We explore the impact and implications of crisis-related informal tax contributions in Sierra Leone, relying on a unique dataset tracking tax contributions and taxpayer perceptions from March 2020 to February 2021. Five key findings emerge. First, in the context of negative economic impacts and the limited and uneven reach of state economic relief, more than a third of individuals paid new informal taxes to help finance the pandemic response. Second, new informal contributions mostly went to financing preventative measures, including hand-washing stations and community sensitization, rather than social welfare or protection. Our data thus points to remaining gaps in pandemic relief and recovery, with informal bottom-up crisis responses constrained by the economic hardships facing individuals, including significant increases in poverty and food insecurity. Third, despite increases in informal taxes, overall burdens do not consistently increase, suggesting that communities pivoted their support to areas of need, rather than increasing informal fiscal burdens. Fourth, wealthier individuals were more likely to make informal contributions at the start of the pandemic, indicating some degree of progressivity, at least at the extensive margin. Finally, despite the insufficiency government pandemic relief and the prevalence of informal taxes to finance preventative measures, views of the fairness of informal taxes have been relatively positive and perceptions of overall government performance during the pandemic have been relatively high. These findings have important implications for our understandings of local perceptions of the fairness of informal financing mechanisms and broader citizen expectations of the state.
Works in progress
Informal revenue generation and the state: Evidence from Sierra Leone (book manuscript)
In this project, I explore the relationship between informal tax institutions and the state. My research asks whether informal taxation contributes to or crowds out the development of more effective formal structures, and considers the conditions under which informal taxation plays a complementary or competitive role with the state. I inductively develop a theoretical framework to explore variation in the nature of relationships between informal taxing actors and the state. I show that informal tax institutions can bolster state authority and state building in unexpected ways. Informal tax institutions can act as brokers of state building, while states may use these institutions to bolster their own authority. The result is that states may seek to sustain informal processes and outcomes, even where we may expect that they would challenge the state’s legitimacy. Critically, I show that the politics of state building are in part played out in conjunction with informal institutions, forcing us to reconsider the notion and structures of statehood in practice.
My analysis draws on a mixed methods research design, combining a largescale survey of taxpayers; over 300 in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, including community and government leaders; over 50 focus group discussions with community leaders, chiefdom authorities, and taxpayers; the compilation of public revenue sources and handwritten informal tax records; the consultation of historical records; and ethnographic immersion over more than a year of fieldwork.
My dissertation, which forms the basis for this book project, was awarded the 2019-2020 Canadian Political Science Association Vincent Lemieux Prize, recognizing “the best PhD thesis submitted at a Canadian institution, in English or in French, in any sub-field of political science, judged eminently worth of publication in the form of a book or articles”. The prize jury notes that, the work “is an example of innovative research in political economy…The theoretical framework is sound, and the author manages to integrate the current literature but also brings her own contributions. It is also an excellent empirical project that includes an original survey and hundreds of interviews. It is well written but does not sacrifice sophistication to parsimony. It is also argued with rigour and clarity, and presented in a way that makes it interesting and accessible to diverse audiences in political science.”
Labour, tax, and development: Shifting norms around labour taxes from the colonial era to today
Informal labour taxes have a long history in former African colonies, though they have not been included in analyses of individual tax burdens and the effective revenue of labour taxes has not been recorded by formal public finance institutions. They have taken a number of forms—from conscripted labour for public works projects in the colonial era to mandated communal labour in the post-independence era—and have been integral to the expansion of state authority. I explore informal labour taxes in Sierra Leone from the colonial period to the present day. I rely on historical records, a unique dataset capturing contemporary informal labour contributions, and over a year of qualitative data collection and ethnographic immersion in nine chiefdom case studies. I trace the perceived legitimacy of informal labour taxes over time, showing how they went from being perceived as “forced labour” to being openly embraced by states and development partners. Once normalized by colonial authorities, a growing international labour movement caused them to be seen as illegitimate. Over time, however, they were reframed by the colonial state as part of “traditional” obligations, with the colonial state legitimizing and institutionalizing them in colonial law. In the post-independence period, there was continuity in the state’s engagement with informal labour taxes, which were seen as central to the “self-reliance” movement. Later shifts in development theory and praxis saw informal labour taxes as indicators of “ownership”, “participation”, and “sustainability”. Accordingly, informal labour taxes have been revived and re-legitimized by the epistemic development community. Though the relative legitimacy of informal labour taxes has shifted over time, states and development partners insufficiently appreciate the burden of mandatory unpaid labour on individuals, as well as how informal labour taxes have contributed to the expansion of state power over time.
Narrow Formalisation: Informal workers, Social Protection and Digital Registration in India (with Harshita Sinha and Max Gallien)
This article explores the relationship between informality and social protection in India and attempts to extend social protection to informal workers following the Covid-19 pandemic through E-shram, a digital registration platform. Relying on secondary data analysis, we first document the experience of informal workers during the pandemic. We trace how pre-existing disconnections between the state and informal workers—particularly in relation to social protection—reinforced exclusions and inequalities, particularly concerning their ability to access emergency Covid relief. Even where relief programs explicitly included informal workers, longstanding barriers to access remained. Subsequently, we explore the Indian state’s new attempts at formalisation, focusing specifically on the introduction of the ‘E-Shram’ program and the ensuing negotiation of the meaning and impacts of informality in India. We show that while the starkness of social protection exclusion during the pandemic led to increasing pressures for ‘formalisation’, including through a Supreme Court order, the resulting E-Shram platform reflects a “narrow” vision of formalisation, more attuned to state needs than the needs of informal workers. While the platform significantly enhances the state’s visibility of informal workers, it falls short of ensuring meaningful improvements in social protection and labor rights. These findings highlight that formalization should be understood as a multidimensional process, challenging the assumption that digital registration alone can integrate informal workers into welfare systems. This analysis has broader implications for countries pursuing digital formalization, emphasizing the need for policies that align state objectives with genuine improvements in social and economic protections for informal workers.
Informal revenue generation and statebuilding in the DRC (with Gayatri Sahgal, Yannick Bokasola, and Caleb Jérémie Dohou)
This paper explores the role of informal taxation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, aiming to shed light on informal fiscal realities and the implications of informal tax institutions for governance and state legitimacy. Relying on mixed methods data from household surveys, interviews, and focus group discussions across Kinshasa and North Kivu, it focuses on three areas of inquiry: the nature of informal taxation, capturing informal taxes for community development projects, informal contributions to customary authorities, and informal payments to armed groups and non-state security providers; citizen perceptions of formal and informal taxing authority; and the impacts of informal taxation on perceptions of the state’s legitimacy. Findings suggest that while informal taxes place a significant burden on citizens, they may support local governance by supplementing public services and reinforcing perceptions of state legitimacy, particularly in the case of customary contributions. Overall, these findings highlight the complex interplay between informal and formal institutions, challenging assumptions that informal taxation solely undermines state authority. Its insights hold critical implications for scholars of informal governance and policymakers aiming to navigate hybrid governance structures in fragile states.
The politics and practice of zakat in Pakistan: Implications for wealth taxation (with Max Gallien and Umair Javed)
Zakat, the annual Islamic obligation to pay 2.5% of wealth, is often referred to as akin to a wealth tax. Previous research, however, has shown that people may not view it as a form of tax, despite it being enforced and mandated by the state in some contexts. More centrally, it is not known how people’s experience of paying zakat influences their perceptions of state taxation, and particularly of wealth taxation, and the state’s role in redistribution. We aim to better understand the relationship between zakat and wealth taxation—specifically, whether people view zakat and wealth taxes as complements or substitutes and whether these views are shaped by political partisanship or jurisprudential belief. We do so in the context of Pakistan, where zakat is enforced by the state, where the state has a zakat fund, and where the government has recently proposed a new wealth tax that mirrors zakat in some respects. In this context, we rely on a nationally representative survey of 7500 Sunni Muslims, which includes conjoint and framing survey experiments. Complementing this quantitative and experimental data, we undertake qualitative data to better understand how both the government and individuals perceive zakat and how they make decisions around it. Through this mixed methods approach, we explore whether zakat payment crowds out support for new forms of wealth taxation and the state’s role in redistribution and the implications that this may have for future tax reform in the country.
The broken social contract: Coercion and credible commitment in Accra's informal sector (with Nana Akua Anyidoho, Max Gallien, and Mike Rogan)
Between God, the people and the state: Zakat (book manuscript) (with Max Gallien and Umair Javed)
Taxing the poor: Why it happens and how we stop it (book manuscript) (with Max Gallien)
Data collection in progress
The politics and practice of zakat in contemporary Pakistan: Implications for gender, equity, and wealth taxation (with Umair Javed and Max Gallien), 2024-25
Collection cost and revenue: Evaluating cost-effectiveness of administration of the tax stamp in Ghana (with Alex Kombat and Max Gallien), 2024-25
Traditional political institutions, taxation and statebuilding in Sierra Leone (with Kevin Grieco), 2024-26
Armed group taxation: A dataset (with Tanya Bandula-Irwin, Max Gallien, Ashley Jackson, and Florian Weigand), 2024-26
Services first: Trust and taxation in Accra's informal economy (with Nana Akua Anyidoho, Max Gallien, and Mike Rogan), 2024-29