South Africa’s tax gaps: Where is revenue being lost

In this presentation, Dr Amina, a Research Fellow at the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), presents research from the Southern Africa – Towards Inclusive Economic Development (SA-TIED) programme examining South Africa’s corporate income tax (CIT) and value-added tax (VAT) compliance gaps.

Drawing on tax return and audit data, the research uses machine learning to estimate potential revenue losses associated with tax misreporting and identify where compliance challenges are concentrated across different industries, firm sizes and provinces.