Resumen de Tax Incentives and Private Saving in Sub-Saharan Africa: Using Taxation to Incentivize Saving
Carmen Bachmann, Patrick Sunday Kayongo, Christopher Seifert
Tax-based saving promotion programs are gaining global attention as a means of mobilizing funds for domestic investment, increasing employment levels, and consequently generating greater economic growth. Despite this, such programs have remained an exception in Sub-Saharan Africa. Whereas the study of saving promotion schemes in the region has been of high interest, no attempts have been made to study how tax policy could be used to augment these efforts. This article contributes to alleviating this deficiency by linking saving promotion schemes with tax policy. The authors use descriptive statistics of region- and country-specific data to assess Sub-Saharan Africa’s private saving landscape and its current use of tax incentives. Through a systematic literature analysis, the article reveals heterogeneous challenges to private saving in the region subsequently leading to inherently low saving levels. Consequently, tax-policy interventions to boost savings in the region remain impractical, especially if the region’s current political economy, business, and demographic environment remain the same. The key barriers to private saving are evaluated, and multidimensional policy suggestions are made for improving the use of tax-based incentives. While the policy recommendations have been specifically tailored for Sub-Saharan Africa’s local socioeconomic circumstances, some of them may apply well to other low-middle-income countries (LMIC) that share similar or related characteristics.
