Publications > Education

Report for ActionAid (February 2018)

This report presents new research in four developing countries – Malawi, Mozambique, Nepal and Tanzania – and shows: How much revenue these governments are losing to tax incentives, including from the tax treaties they have signed with other countries; What it would cost these countries to provide all girls with full access to primary education, and; How much this investment in girls’ education would benefit not only the girls themselves but the economy as a whole.

The research finds that:

• Three of the four countries are losing more than half a billion dollars a year to tax incentives
• The costs of educating all girls currently out of primary school is miniscule by comparison. Tanzania, for example, loses 15 times more in tax incentives each year than it would cost to educate all girls currently out of primary school
• Two countries, Mozambique and Nepal, would gain more than $1 billion by educating all girls currently out of primary school over their 45 year working lives.

There are 61 million children of primary school age around the world who are out of school – most of whom are girls. To ensure that all girls have a good quality education, governments in developing countries need to increase their spending on education and improve its quality. One key way to raise extra resources is by increasing tax revenues, and one major way to do that is to reduce or eliminate the tax incentives that many governments now offer, especially to corporations.

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Policy brief for ActionAid (August 2017)

How much revenue do African governments lose from providing tax incentives, such as giving companies tax holidays and exemptions on paying taxes on import duties and value added tax? And if these precious national budget resources were set aside to fund quality, public education instead, how much greater could education spending be? This brief provides figures for revenue losses from tax incentives for several African countries. It concludes that governments in sub-Saharan Africa may be losing US$38.6 billion a year, or 2.4% of their GDP, to tax incentives. This is equivalent to nearly half (47%) of their current education spending. Having a much clearer pro-poor policy for granting incentives and using some of these resources to fund education could provide a much-needed and significant boost to education budgets across Africa.

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Report for ActionAid and International Commission on Financing Global Education (November 2016)

This report, part-written by Curtis Research, outlines how increased taxation in developing countries should fund public education. The task is urgent given that 121 million primary or lower secondary age children are out of school while 250 million children who are in school but not learning. Many tax incentives provided by developing country governments cause far more harm than good. First, and most importantly, they can massively reduce government revenues by removing the requirement for companies to pay fair levels of tax. Second, they can encourage corruption and secrecy when negotiated in highly discretionary ‘special deals’ with individual companies. Third, they mainly attract ‘footloose’ firms which move their investments from one country to another, and therefore do not encourage stable long term investments. Fourth, where they favour foreign investors, they can disadvantage domestic investors and deter them from entering markets or expanding. The ostensible reason for governments providing tax incentives to business is to attract foreign direct investment (FDI), yet the evidence suggests that tax incentives are not needed to attract FDI. There are four types of incentives that are particularly problematic: discretionary incentives, tax holidays, tax incentives in free trade zones and stability agreements. Developing countries are estimated to lose US$139 billion a year just from one form of tax incentive – corporate income tax exemptions. This could easily fill the annual global finance gap for basic education.

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