FRIEDRICH-EBERT-STIFTUNG – A majority working in the shadows Figure 6.3 Perceptions of the degree to which different institutions can make a major difference in solving informally employed people’s main priorities International donors Civil society organisations Trade unions Religious leaders Traditional leaders Political parties Local government National parliament National government The president Not at all Just a little Somewhat A lot Note: Values are calculated as means for all available respondents in all countries(no particular weights are used). Exact wording of the ques­tion: Assuming the following actors are willing to work towards tackling your top priorities you highlighted, do you think that they can make a significant difference and change the situation to better through their actions? – Response options: Not at all; Just a little; Somewhat; A lot; Don’t know/ Haven’t heard[not read out but coded] realizing their demands it is important to assess the degree to which different institutions are actually seen to care about the issues that are relevant for them. Our survey included a question on this topic. In general, the results referring to how much institutions are perceived to care about people’s priorities are a bit lower than those referring to trust(see Figure 6.2). The gap between abstract trust in institutions and the more concrete perception of the degree to which these institutions care may signal a disconnect between many institutions and the informally employed. In fact, the numbers suggest that a remarkable proportion of informally employed people consider that many institutions focus on other issues that are not particularly important to them. Finally, in terms of perceptions of different institutions, it would be interesting to understand which institutions in­formally employed people expect to make a real difference to their situation. This certainly affects the degree to which they have an incentive to cooperate, engage and lobby dif­ferent institutions, but also gives an indication of where they perceive that the power to change things lies. In line with the results described above the president is seen as the one person able to make a difference, while the trade unions and political parties are perceived as having less potential. The numbers are remarkably high for international donors, as well as traditional and religious leaders(see Figure 6.3). 6.3 PERCEPTIONS OF TAXES AND FEES ployed consider that non-compliance is an issue. Variation in the perception of non-compliance is relatively high, however. While in Ethiopia only 14 per cent of respondent considered that not paying income tax happens often, this number is above 40 per cent in Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire(see Table 6.2). Beyond the perceived occurrence of non-compliance, in order to understand the potential to increase tax collection as a step previous to expanding public social and health care systems, it is essential to get a feeling about whether the informally employed consider it legitimate for the state to extract revenue at all. The data presented in Table 6.3 indicate that there is a very strong awareness that not paying for services or not paying taxes is»wrong«. Still a remarkable proportion of respondents considered that not paying taxes is»wrong but understandable«(46 per cent). 5 This is a worrisome number in absolute, but also in relative terms. Afrobarometer surveys have asked the same question in several African countries over time. In essence, al­though with some caution, it can be argued that comparing the responses between our data and those of Afrobarometer amounts to comparing the perceptions of the population as a whole to those of the informally employed. For the countries in our sample for which Afrobarometer data on this issue are available(all except Ethiopia) the proportion of respondents who consider not paying taxes»not wrong at all« or»wrong but understandable« is clearly higher, on average. This implies that, on average, informally employed A large majority of the respondents considered that it is diffi­cult or very difficult to avoid paying taxes. When confronted with a more abstract(and less self-referenced) question on the degree to which, in general, non-compliance happens and people do not pay the taxes or fees they owe, the numbers go up. Hence, a remarkable proportion of the informally em­5 Details on variations between countries can be found in Table 6.3. The table does not include Ethiopia because Afrobarometer does not have data for it on the precise question. Interestingly, Ethiopia seems to be an outlier. In Ethiopia 12.3 per cent of the sample state that not paying taxes owed is»not wrong at all«, 16.9 per cent consider it »wrong but understandable«, 58 per cent»wrong and punishable« and 12.9 per cent do not respond. 52