and why, they may find the system fairer and more trustworthy – and be more willing to comply. For example, efforts to reduce face-to-face encounters between taxpayers and tax collectors are designed to simplify payment – but also to reduce the types of harassment and corruption that can undermine trust in the fairness of the tax system. Both were, for example, explicit goals motivating the introduction of the iTax system by the Kenya Revenue Authority in 2015.<sup>73</sup> Simplification reforms have similarly served a dual purpose: they have made it easier to comply, but have also sought to make tax systems more transparent, fairer and more equitable – thus expanding trust and quasi-voluntary compliance.

Tax reform programs aimed at compliance have thus gradually shifted toward a greater focus on building trust. That said, the extent of actual reforms, and their impact on trust and tax morale, remains unclear. Almost all tax authorities have formally undertaken initiatives to expand transparency and taxpayer education. However, their impact appears highly variable. Formal transparency initiatives often appear to be inaccessible to most taxpayers, while taxpayer education is sometimes synonymous simply with telling people why they should pay taxes. There appears to be a continuing need to stress more meaningful and accessible forms of transparency, and to construct forums for reciprocal engagement between taxpayers and governments around paying taxes _and_ how those revenues are used.<sup>74</sup> Meanwhile, efforts to reduce face-to-face interaction and thereby reduce opportunities for corruption have advanced rapidly for higher-income taxpayers, but have been slow to emerge for the much larger majority of smaller taxpayers.<sup>75</sup> In short, recent reform experiences – both in enforcement and facilitation – present a puzzle: they seem highly promising, but in practice progress has been much slower than expected. Most of the reform options described here have experienced significant success in at least some places. Yet attempts to replicate success stories in a different context have often failed. Even seemingly simple measures to improve performance have frequently proven stubbornly difficult to enact. For example, enabling access to basic information across government agencies on things like home and vehicle ownership appears straightforward, but is rarely done. Meanwhile, governments have seemed reluctant to adopt the types of policy experiments, and simplifying reforms, that are consistent with the existing research and appear to hold substantial promise.

The lack of progress on parts of the reform agenda that are both low cost and technically straightforward appears to speak to the dominant role of politics in shaping reform trajectories.<sup>76</sup> This is unsurprising, as tax reform presents a significant political challenge across several dimensions. It confronts powerful and relatively organized vested interests, since tax reforms depend on securing resources from relatively small groups of wealthy and frequently wellconnected taxpayers and firms. Tax administrators, in turn, have historically proven to be complex allies in reform. They often favor improved performance in the abstract, and in some cases the

> 73 Franzsen, R., & McCluskey, W. (2017). _Property tax in Africa status, challenges, and prospects_ . Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

> 74 Prichard, W., Beach, R., Mohiuddin, F., & van den Boogaard, V. (forthcoming). The micro-links between taxation and accountability initiatives. _ICTD Working Paper_ . Brighton: International Centre for Tax and Development.

> 75 Moore, M., Prichard, W., & Fjeldstad., O-H. (2018). Small taxes and large burdens: Informal and subnational revenues. _Taxing Africa Coercion, Reform and Development_ . London: Zed Books. 147-178.

> 76 Prichard, W. 2019. "Tax, Politics and the Social Contract in Africa." In _Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics_ . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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