Missed Opportunity: How could funds lost to tax incentives in Africa be used to fill the education finance gap?
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.