Ease of Doing Business and Taxes from Goods and Services in Selected African Countries

Abstract

Tax revenue generation is crucial for economic development and fiscal sustainability in African countries, as it provides the resources needed for public services and infrastructure. However, many African nations face challenges in generating adequate tax revenue, particularly taxes from goods and services. By streamlining business processes, ease of doing business strategies, starting a business, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency, could offer a sustainable solution to address low tax revenue generation. Ex-post facto research design was adopted for the study. The result of the multiple linear regression analysis conducted using sample of 39 countries for a period of 10 years (2014–2023) revealed that ease of doing business had significant effect on taxes from goods and services (W(2, 723) = 1139.21, p < 0.05) in selected African Countries. The study concluded that enabling business environment, strategies, and policies enhanced taxes from goods and services in selected African Countries. It is recommended that governments, tax authorities, policymakers, the private sector, and business associations in selected African countries should strengthen public-private collaboration efforts to improve an enabling environment for business growth, and optimize tax revenue collection mechanisms.