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This study aims to examine the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows on tax revenue in 34 developed and developing countries from 2006 to 2020.

Feasible generalised least squares (FGLS), a dynamic panel of a two-step system generalised method of moments (GMM) system and a pool mean group (PMG) panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach were used to compare the developed and developing countries. Basic estimators were used as pre-estimators and diagnostic tests were used to increase robustness.

The FGLS, a two-step system of GMM, PMG–ARDL estimator’s results showed that there was a significant negative long and positive short-term in most countries relationship between FDI inflows and tax revenue in developed countries. This study concluded that attracting investments can improve the quality of institutions despite high tax rates, leading to low tax revenue. Meanwhile, there was a significant positive long and negative short-term relationship between FDI inflows and tax revenue in the developing countries. The developing countries sought to attract FDI that could be used to create job opportunities and transfer technology to simultaneously develop infrastructure and impose a tax policy that would achieve high tax revenue.

The present study sheds light on the effect of FDI on tax revenue and compares developed and developing countries through the design and implementation of policies to create jobs, transfer technology and attain economic growth in order to assure foreign investors that they would gain continuous high profits from their investments.

This paper examines the short- and long-run effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on tax revenue in Ghana.

The paper adopts the autoregressive distributed lag approach to estimate FDI’s long-run and short-run effects on tax revenue. The study uses time-series data from 1983 to 2019 for Ghana, mainly obtained from The Bank of Ghana, the World Bank and the IMF.

The results show that, in the short-run, FDI has no significant effect on direct tax revenue and total tax revenue but significantly hurts indirect tax revenue. In the long run, however, the results show that FDI has significant positive effects on indirect tax revenue and total tax revenue but no significant effect on direct tax revenue.

Empirical studies often fail to analyse the short-run and long-run effects of FDI on tax revenue. This study contributes to the mixed literature by analysing the short-run and long-run effects of FDI on tax revenue in an emerging market context. Additionally, this study employs three tax revenue measures in analysing the nexus.

This paper assesses the impact of tax reforms on tax revenue mobilisation in Ghana.

The autoregressive distributed lag model together with dynamic ordinary least squares and fully modified least squares techniques were employed on a time-series data spanning from 1980–2018. Exploiting data from IMFs monitoring of fund arrangements database, an index of tax reforms is constructed as a function of the number of successfully implemented tax-related reforms and policy measures per year over the study period.

Having established the presence of co-integration between tax revenue and its determinants, this paper finds strong evidence that tax-related reforms exert positive and significant impact on tax revenue generation in Ghana. Among other covariates, the results show that the tax base (real GDP), public debt and education (human capital index) significantly boosts tax revenue in the long run.

The success of tax reforms in boosting revenue mobilisation has been examined in light of the buoyancy and elasticity of the tax system in Ghana, albeit with little emphasis on the extent to which tax reforms contribute to tax revenue mobilisation from econometric perspective. This paper fills this gap in the literature by analysing the impact of tax reforms on tax revenue mobilisation in Ghana. As a recommendation, well-designed and implemented tax reforms and policies aimed at increasing the tax base, education and effective utilisation of funds from public debt promise to be instrumental in boosting tax revenue in Ghana.

Given that the literature on the links between taxation and inclusive human development is ambiguous, it is important to investigate whether the mediating influence of governance in taxation for inclusive development exists. Thus, this study aims to explore the linkages between the governance quality, taxation and inclusive human development (i.e. inequality-adjusted human development index).

This study employs the generalized method of moments (GMM) technique to establish the empirical findings on 52 African countries for the period 2010–2018. Among the existing GMM approaches, this study follows the Roodman approach, an enhancement of the Arellano and Bover techniques, which limits the proliferation of instruments. This study uses the two-step approach, which deals with issues of the heteroscedasticity as against instead the one-step procedure, which solely addresses the homoscedasticity concerns.

The following findings are established. First, there is an unconditional positive effect of taxation on inclusive human development. Second, the net effects of taxation on inclusive human development, associated with the interaction of the government revenue with governance quality variables, are positive for the most part. It is then evident that when taxation policies are combined with good governance initiatives, the ultimate impact of inclusive human development is likely to be enhanced.

This study establishes that, whereas taxation dynamics largely have a favorable incidence in promoting inclusive human development, when such taxation measures are complemented with good governance initiatives, the overall impact of inclusive human development is also likely to be positive. It follows that policies designed to promote political, economic and institutional governance should be implemented in tandem, which policies designed to boost tax performance in the sampled countries. The findings can also be understood from the perspectives that inclusive human development is likely to be boosted when taxation measures are complemented with, (1) the free and fair election and replacement of political leaders (i.e. political governance), (2) the formulation and implementation of inclusive policies for the delivery of public goods (i.e. economic governance) and (3) the respect by citizens and the state of institutions that govern interactions between them (i.e. institutional governance).

This study examines the effect of board characteristics on the tax aggressiveness of listed companies on the Colombo Stock Exchange in Sri Lanka.

The sample consists of 264 firm-year observations of non-financial listed companies in Sri Lanka from 2014 to 2019. The dynamic panel system GMM technique was used to test the hypotheses, and further analyses were performed using the propensity score matching technique.

All four effective tax rate measures' mean values were lower than the statutory tax rate, indicating the likelihood of tax planning. Whether board attributes are likely to mitigate tax aggressiveness is uncertain because the results are inconsistent and depend on the ETR measure. Similarly, the logistic regression results derived using the PSM approach are inconsistent, suggesting that board characteristics may have a limited effect on tax aggressiveness. Hence, the corporate governance-tax aggressiveness nexus is limited in the case of Sri Lanka.

This investigation is limited to non-financial listed companies in Sri Lanka and incorporates only four tax aggressiveness measures. Findings are imperative for policymakers, regulators, and professional bodies to improve corporate governance codes and rules to enhance organisational transparency toward corporate tax payments.

Aggressive tax planning by companies will reduce government tax revenue, hinder social progress, and cause public mistrust of large corporations and institutions.

This study provides insight into the nexus between corporate governance and tax aggressiveness in a middle-income economy in South Asia hit by an economic crisis where tax revenue has fallen and tax enforcement is weak.

Despite the importance of tax policy in reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions, there is a dearth of research on the environmental impact of indirect taxes. This paper examines the impact of indirect taxes on carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions, with an emphasis on institutional quality.

The study uses the Government Revenue Dataset (2021), comprising 143 countries, dividing into 114 developing and 29 developed countries, during the period between 1996 and 2019. The author adopts panel data techniques, with Driscoll–Kraay standard errors to account for the issue of cross-sectional dependence (CSD).

The results indicate that indirect tax revenues have a negative and significant impact on CO₂ emissions for the total sample. The subsample analysis revealed that while indirect taxes reduce carbon emissions in developing countries, opposed results are reported for developed countries. This finding implies that most of the advanced countries have already reached a high level of taxes, at which carbon emissions increase as indirect tax increases further. Interestingly, the results revealed that institutional quality enhances the role of indirect taxes in mitigating carbon emissions for both developing and developed countries.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the sole study using the newly developed tax data by the United Nations University, World Institute for Development Research (UNU-WIDER) to investigate the impact of indirect taxes on carbon emissions, with an emphasis on institutional quality. The existing literature focuses on specific taxes, like carbon taxes, with no comprehensive research on the link between indirect taxes and carbon emissions.

This study aims to understand the interaction between tax fairness perceptions, equitable tax burden distribution and tax compliance within Morocco’s unique socio-economic context, with the goal of uncovering strategies to enhance tax compliance.

Using the Delphi method, this study engaged tax experts in the Moroccan context to explore the impact of taxpayers’ perception of fairness, tax rates and tax burden on compliance. Their responses were gathered and analyzed with the aid of IRaMuTeQ software, which helped the authors identify themes relevant to the research question.

The preliminary results indicate a positive correlation between perceptions of tax fairness and compliance behavior, corroborating earlier studies conducted in different contexts. Notably, a substantial majority of Moroccan taxpayers perceive the current tax system as inequitable, deeming tax rates too high and the tax burden unfairly distributed among various taxpayer categories. This perception potentially influences their voluntary tax compliance behavior.

The findings have significant policy implications for the Moroccan Government and stakeholders. They suggest that by improving tax fairness, particularly by aligning tax assessment and payment modalities for employees, civil servants and small to medium enterprises, policymakers can encourage higher voluntary tax compliance, thereby potentially enhancing the efficiency of the Moroccan tax system.

This study adds to the existing body of knowledge by exploring the dynamics of tax fairness and compliance behavior in Morocco, a context which has been significantly understudied.

The purpose of this study is to empirically analyse the fiscal revenue implications for oil-dependent African countries in the face of low-carbon energy transition (LET).

The study combined the novel fully modified ordinary least squares, dynamic ordinary least squares and canonical cointegrating regressions estimators to analyse secondary data between 1990 and 2020 for the three major oil-dependent African Countries (Algeria, Angola and Nigeria).

The result shows that LET reduces oil revenue and non-revenue for specific countries (Algeria, Angola and Nigeria) and the panel, suggesting that low-carbon energy transiting is lowering the fiscal revenue of oil-dependent African nations.

The seeming weakness of this study is its inability to broaden the scope to include all oil-producing African economies. However, since the study selected Africa’s top three oil-producing states, the sample can serve as a model for others with lesser crude oil outputs.

Oil-dependent African countries must urgently engage in sincere economic diversification in sectors like industry and manufacturing, the service sector and human capital development to promote economic transformation that will enhance fiscal revenue.

With the pace of energy transition towards low-carbon energy, it is not business as usual for oil-rich African countries (Algeria, Angola and Nigeria) due to fluctuating demand and price. As a result, it becomes worthy to examine how the transition is affecting oil-dependent economies in Africa. Also, this study’s method is unique as it has not been used in a similar study for Africa.

This study explored the tax evasion and corruption–economic development nexus in Ghana and the moderating role of institutional quality in this relationship.

To achieve this objective, this study employed the structural equation modelling (SEM) strategy and maximum likelihood (ML) estimation method on selected quarterised data from 1996 to 2020.

The study found that tax evasion has a positive impact on GDP per capita and urbanisation but a negative impact on the Economic Freedom of the World Index (EFWI). The study revealed that corruption has a positive relationship with GDP per capita but relates with EFWI inversely. Finally, the study found that institutional quality moderates the nexus between tax evasion and corruption and economic development.

The findings imply that the quality of state institutions has a significant impact on the government's ability to control tax evasion and corruption in order to drive economic development.

One novelty of the study is the examination of the combined effects of tax evasion and corruption as exogenous variables in a single econometric model. Again, to moderate the multivariate relationships of the study, the principal component analysis (PCA) was used to create an institutional quality index. The study recommends that policymakers implement comprehensive tax evasion and corruption reduction strategies simultaneously in order to increase tax revenues for economic development and SDGs achievement.

From the perspective of local government tax administration, the impact of geographic dispersion on the corporate tax burden is investigated in this paper.

Using unbalanced panel data with a sample of listed companies from 2003 to 2020 in China, this paper focuses on the effect of geographic dispersion on corporate tax burden and the mechanisms.

It is found that corporate tax burden is positively related to geographic dispersion. It is also found that geographic dispersion affects the corporate tax burden by increasing the effort of local government tax administration. In addition, the relation between geographic dispersion and corporate tax burden is more pronounced for local SOEs prior to the implementation of Golden Tax Project III and in cases where local governments face stronger financial pressure to obtain revenue.

This study has important implications for the promotion of the coordinated development of the regional economy, as well as the legalization, modernization and informatization of tax administration.