The OECD in conjunction with the African Union Commission (AUC) and the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) recently published Revenue Statistics in Africa which examines the tax profile of twenty one African states. The report finds that African economies continue to rely heavily on taxes on goods and services, which accounted for 54.6 percent of total tax in 2016. However, the contribution of income taxes is increasing with taxes on income and profits accounting for 34.3 percent of total revenues in 2016.

The report is based on twenty one African states – Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cabo Verde, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Eswatini, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Togo, Tunisia and Uganda. The tax revenue trends are mixed across the twenty-one states. Between 2015 and 2016, the tax-to-GDP ratios of 11 countries increased while those of 10 countries in the sample decreased. Botswana registered the highest increase (1.3 percentage points) followed by Mali (1.2 percentage points). The largest decreases (of over 2.0 percentage points) occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Niger. The changes in tax-to-GDP ratios were primarily due to economic factors according to the report.