Prof Attiya Waris

Developing countries continue to face the challenge of creating state-society trust and, in turn, compliant taxpayers. This endeavour is hampered by, amongst other things, state inefficiencies, inequalities and corruption, and a lack of accountability, responsibility and transparency, which continue to exist in developing countries, potentially resulting in unfair and unjust government administrations. The impact that a government and its tax administration have, through practices (either real or perceived) relating to these challenges, has an effect on taxpayers' compliance and trust in government. This article analyses elements of fiscal legitimacy of the fiscal state and posits that, in trying to widen a developing country's tax base and increase taxes, one must understand how to build taxpayer compliance. Using African examples, this article reflects on the context of taxpayers in African countries and the ways in which a state can go about building a culture of compliance and trust between state and citizens.

Constitutionalism is the idea that the powers of government can and should be limited, and that its authority flows from enforcing these limitations. In constitution making and analysis, the right or power of the government to tax seems almost superfluous. No real analysis goes into tying down the right or power of government to tax, the amount collectible and the use to which it is put. Instead there tends to be a presumption that a state can tax and taxes cannot be tied to services at all. However, this presumption has encouraged a culture of tax evasion, avoidance, impunity and corruption, lack of responsibility, and accountability as well as outright theft. A rights-based approach is important in understanding both tax spending and how it is collected. Africa is of particular interest because it currently has constitutions that vary in date of commencement from the 1950s to 2010. Some constitutions came into place through national referendums, others through constitutional assemblies, others are monarchies and yet others were put in place at independence. The result is a myriad of approaches to the creation of a fiscal constitution that are worth exploring, analysing and discussing to attempt to reach some understanding of what would be most suitable for a tax state that is attempting to achieve the level of a fiscal state. This paper will using Schumpeter as well as Ormrod and Bonney’s theories of the development of the fiscal state as well as Buchanan’s argument on the right or power to tax to analyse the constitutional texts and begin to understand the constitutional problems facing taxation.

Progress towards Millennium Development Goal 5a, reducing maternal deaths by 75% between 1990 and 2015, has been substantial; however, it has been too slow to hope for its achievement by 2015, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, including Uganda. This suggests that both the Government of Uganda and the international community are failing to comply with their right-to-health-related obligations towards the people of Uganda. This country case study explores some of the key issues raised when assessing national and international right-to-health-related obligations. We argue that to comply with their shared obligations, national and international actors will have to take steps to move forward together. The Government of Uganda should not expect additional international assistance if it does not live up to its own obligations; at the same time, the international community must provide assistance that is more reliable in the long run to create the ‘fiscal space’ that the Government of Uganda needs to increase recurrent expenditure for health – which is crucial to addressing maternal mortality. We propose that the ‘Roadmap on Shared Responsibility and Global Solidarity for AIDS, TB and Malaria Response in Africa’, adopted by the African Union in July 2012, should be seen as an invitation to the international community to conclude a global social contract for health

Background
Global health institutions increasingly recognize that the right to health should guide the formulation of replacement goals for the Millennium Development Goals, which expire in 2015. However, the right to health’s contribution is undercut by the principle of progressive realization, which links provision of health services to available resources, permitting states to deny even basic levels of health coverage domestically and allowing international assistance for health to remain entirely discretionary.

Discussion
To prevent progressive realization from undermining both domestic and international responsibilities towards health, international human rights law institutions developed the idea of non-derogable “minimum core” obligations to provide essential health services. While minimum core obligations have enjoyed some uptake in human rights practice and scholarship, their definition in international law fails to specify which health services should fall within their scope, or to specify wealthy country obligations to assist poorer countries. These definitional gaps undercut the capacity of minimum core obligations to protect essential health needs against inaction, austerity and illegitimate trade-offs in both domestic and global action. If the right to health is to effectively advance essential global health needs in these contexts, weaknesses within the minimum core concept must be resolved through innovative research on social, political and legal conceptualizations of essential health needs.

Summary
We believe that if the minimum core concept is strengthened in these ways, it will produce a more feasible and grounded conception of legally prioritized health needs that could assist in advancing health equity, including by providing a framework rooted in legal obligations to guide the formulation of new health development goals, providing a baseline of essential health services to be protected as a matter of right against governmental claims of scarcity and inadequate international assistance, and empowering civil society to claim fulfillment of their essential health needs from domestic and global decision-makers.

Purpose - This article relies on the Global Wealth Chains (GWCs) theory. This theory is an analytical framework intended to identify how wealth is repackaged and disguised in order to move it out of spheres of state oversight, regulation and taxation. It introduces the law on Anti Money laundering in Bangladesh, pointing out the revised FAFT recommendation that has expanded the scope of money laundering predicate offences to cover both indirect and direct tax crimes and smuggling in relation to customs and excise duties and taxes.

Design/methodology/approach - Interviews in Bangladesh and desk research

Findings - There are some gaps in the scope of the offence, the coverage of predicate offences and the types of property covered by the money laundering offence. There is also an absence of financial penalties available to effectively sanction legal persons. The current Money laundering offences are derived from the ordinance issued in 2008 by the caretaker government (2006-2008). The current Act contains detailed definitions of money laundering and property and a list of predicate offences and sanctions for the offence. However, there are some gaps in the physical elements of the offence and the range of its predicate offences remains too narrow. Adding tax evasion to its list of predicate offences will, given the history of money laundering in Bangladesh aid in combating illegal transfer of assets abroad and recovery of the same and abolish tax amnesty.

Originality/value - There is no paper that has analysed the linkages between money laundering and taxation in developing countries especially Bangladesh

Rwanda is currently reviewing its OECD-based transfer pricing rules and is drafting guidelines under the Commissioner General’s mandate that will allow for more detailed regulations to be put in place. There is, however, no recent activity on transfer pricing to be noted, although it is clear that the revenue authority staff are now much better trained regarding this issue and are better able to identify cases of mis-pricing in the future.

Financing Africa’s development requires ingenuity, discipline, and an understanding of fiscal systems – the entirety of government revenues and expenditures, including taxation and debt. This book makes fascinating what might seem at first glance complex. It describes diverse approaches that have been adjusted to local circumstances across the continent and reflects on the push to unite and harmonise toward African union.

Africa is rich, yet resources are lost through loopholes in fiscal systems. Financial resources come from the people, are not unlimited, and do not come easily or without cost. Africans must therefore cherish these resources and use them in nation-building and national and regional development. Efficient, effective, transparent and accountable fiscal systems that are fair and just will go a long way toward financing Africa’s development.

Using examples from all of Africa’s 54 countries, the book makes fiscal matters real and understandable for people, no matter their field. It demonstrates the importance of fiscal law and policy for development and the impact it has on individuals, communities, nations, regional groupings, and the continent.

There have been numerous papers published on illicit financial flows. This includes not just academic papers but policy and reports out of international as well as continental and regional organisations and institutions globally. The issue of the illicit flows are thus being raised not just at the academic, civil society and public level but is also being discussed by political leaders. There is a growing body of work surrounding the definition of the concept and how much is being transferred which remains disputed. There is also some research into what is being transferred and how it is being moved. This includes research on the global wealth and value chains involved and the methods of transfer through the political, economic, legal and accounting processes in order to facilitate cross-border financial flows. This research has also successfully been made accessible to the general public. Although globally there remains a lack of clarity on certain issues, African states collectively and separately have taken certain steps, first and foremost by producing a joint UNECA/AU report on Illicit Financial Flows (Mbeki report). The next almost inevitable step would be to look into how to track, control and stop the IFF. The beginning of a meeting of minds between the social, economic, legal, accounting and political domains is a necessity in order to place the issue high up enough on a political agenda to realise legislative, policy and practice changes. The question that this paper will deal with is: in light of all the information now available to countries globally, continentally and regionally, what changes are actually taking place on the ground within states to track, control and stop illicit financial flows. The key areas that play a part in IFF include anti-money laundering and banking; taxation and corruption (criminal) law. This paper will however limit itself to the actions being taken in Africa at the continental, regional and domestic levels from a treaty, legislative, policy and practitioner perspective in these 3 sectors to see whether there is indeed change on the continent and where African states are focussed. It will analyse if the continent, regions or states are moving in the direction of countering IFF, what direction is being taken and steps being considered and implemented. It will then propose recommendations on what other alternative or additional steps could be considered by African governments to counter IFF.