Macroeconomic Determinants of the Mobilization of Tax Revenues of the Countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU)

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the fiscal potential of UEMOA member countries. The question of the fiscal potential of the states is of great importance since the domestic resources represent a high proportion in the financing in Plans and strategies of economic and social development. In this article, we adopt the technique of stochastic border estimation, which is more intuitive—and potentially more relevant for policies—to measure the potential and fiscal effort over the period 1990-2017. The results show that the tax burden is determined by structural factors and that, in most countries, the tax potential is underutilized. Similarly, the fiscal effort shows poor performance in terms of resource mobilization in the majority of countries. These results show that the WAEMU countries can reach or exceed the tax rate of 20% minimum set by the UEMOA if efforts are made to better tax the informal sector. The main contributions of this article have been to justify empirically the increase of the minimum pressure rate in the UEMOA from 17% to 20% and to demonstrate that a better taxation of the agricultural sector would considerably affect the mobilization of tax revenues.