The political economy of revenue pressure and tax collection efficiency

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to develop a political-economy model to show how political imperatives lead to reforms in administering direct tax collection.Design methodology approach - A static, political-gain approach was used to model employment in the tax collection sector and then the implications of an increase in revenue pressure were derived through a comparative statics method.Findings - As revenue pressure increases, the "political value" in terms of granting employment falls and thus efficiency resulting from purely political motives decreases.Originality value - This paper is an original work.