The ATAF’s ATO was successfully launched on 26th June 2016 with 15 member countries - Burundi, Cameroon, Kenya, Lesotho, Mauritius, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, The Gambia, Togo, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Six (6) additional countries joined the second edition which was published and launched on 15th August 2017: Benin, Botswana, Liberia, Mozambique, Nigeria and Zambia. During the preparation to the 3rd edition called the 2018 ATO publication, 5 new countries joined: Angola, Chad, Ghana, Malawi, and Niger, and this edition is due to be published and launched on 30th July 2018 in Rwanda. The 2019 ATO publication has already attracted 6 more countries which are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Madagascar, Morocco, Namibia and Sierra Leone, thus bringing the total number of participating countries in this seminal project to 32.
The first 4 editions of the ATO publication bring together valuable, practical and relevant descriptive and analytical information on tax issues from 2010 to 2017. The publication assesses and compares participating countries against indicators in various categories: tax rates, tax bases, tax structure, revenue performance, tax administration, taxpayer service and compliance. These indicators are crucial to African tax authorities as they implement reforms and policies to broaden the tax base, narrow tax gaps, simplify and improve fairness in tax systems, enhance overall voluntary compliance, and keep policy makers informed on tax matters.
BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT
The ATAF’s African Tax Outlook Publication arose from the necessity to make available reliable tax statistics and analyses pertaining to African tax administrations, with a view to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of member country taxation. It is a flagship African publication which provides valuable, practical and relevant descriptive and analytical work on tax issues to improve tax administrations and inform tax policy formulation and implementation in Africa.
For a successful preparation of each annual ATO publication, two key workshops are scheduled to take place prior to the year of publication: Consultative Workshop combined with the Validation Worksop attended by the Heads of Research of tax administrations and the Capacity Building Workshop attended by the data collectors.