The tax burden on mobile network operators in Africa

The app

In the framework of an on-going research project on taxation in Africa, the FERDI and the CERDI are pleased to present a new web application on the taxation of telecommunications companies. With this new tool, scholars and policymakers can calculate the optimal level of tax rates for 25 countries.

The authors, Faycal Sawadogo (CERDI PhD student and FERDI research assistant) and Mohamed Aliou Tounkara (FERDI research assistant) determine the Average Effective Tax Rate (AETR) related to the activity of a representative telecommunication company TELCO, which is built on the GSMA Intelligence database, and supervised by Grégoire Rota-Graziosi, Director at Cerdi.

The tool also includes analysis sections including a breakdown of tax revenues and the AETR between general and mobile-special taxation, beneficiary institutions, and a cross-sectoral comparisons section. The cross-sectoral comparison considers three sectors: telecommunications, gold mining, and a standard field without any special taxation. The application also allows each user to modify the parameters, assumptions and data associated with the analysis.

Related publications

• The tax burden on mobile network operators in Africa, Grégoire Rota-Graziosi, Fayçal Sawadogo, Ferdi Working Paper 278, December 2020.
• Taxing mobile phone more than gold mining in Africa, Grégoire Rota-Graziosi, Fayçal Sawadogo, Ferdi Policy Brief 214, November 2020.
• Grégoire Rota-Graziosi, Director of Cerdi, Faycal Sawadogo, PhD candidate of Cerdi and Christophe Angely, Director of Strategy of Ferdi participated in a round table entitled "The future of taxation in a digitalising world", Ferdi, Feb. 2019.

For more information, see the website.