Trust in institutions and perceptions of the tax system among informally employed people Table 6.2 Perceptions of compliance with taxes and fees among the informally employed How often do you think people do not pay the taxes they owe on their income? How often do you think people do not pay the fees for the services they receive from government? Never Sometimes Often Never Sometimes Often Senegal 28% 35% 37% 35% 34% 32% Zambia 16% 47% 37% 16% 48% 36% Kenya 6% 47% 47%  6% 53% 41% Benin 12% 47% 40% 17% 51% 33% Côte d'Ivoire 17% 40% 43% 22% 40% 38% Ethiopia 41% 46% 14% 41% 47% 12% Mean 20% 44% 36% 23% 45% 32% Note: Exact wording of the question: The question is asked as a battery. How often do you think that the actions we describe happen in general? For each of the following, please tell me: A. Not paying fees for the services they receive from government. B. Not paying the taxes they owe on their income. Response options. Never; Sometimes; Often; Don‘t Know[Not read aloud but coded] Table 6.3 Perceptions of tax evasion Not wrong at all Wrong but understandable Wrong and punishable Do not know Afrobarometer Data FES-IDOS-ILO Data Afrobarometer Data FES-IDOS-ILO Data Afrobarometer Data FES-IDOS-ILO Data Afrobarometer Data FES-IDOS-ILO Total 4.7% 9.1% 37.9% 46.3% 52.2% 39.1% 5.2% 5.5% Benin 3.8% 8.6% 47.0% 49.8% 48.9% 40.6% 0.2% 1.0% Côte d´Ivoire 2.0% 5.6% 41.2% 64.2% 54.2% 27.2% 2.6% 3.0% Kenya 6.9% 8.0% 36.5% 36.4% 51.3% 48.8% 5.3% 6.7% Senegal 3.4% 12.7% 36.4% 45.4% 58.1% 40.7% 2.1% 1.8% Zambia 5.2% 10.6% 29.7% 35.6% 49.2% 38.9% 15.9% 14.9% Note: Exact wording of the question: I am now going to ask you about a range of different actions that some people take. For each of the following, please tell me(…) B. Not paying the taxes they owe on their income. In this calculation the total does not include data from Ethio­pia as Afrobarometer does not have any results on this country. Afrobarometer data correspond to Afrobarometer Data,[Benin, Côte d´Ivoire, Kenya, Senegal, Zambia], Round 6, 2014–2015, available at http://www.afrobarometer.org. people consider it to some degree justified to not pay taxes more often than the general population. The gap between the perceptions of the larger population and of the infor­mally employed is particularly large in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Zambia. 6 This tolerance for tax evasion might be connected to a per­ception that the use of the resources is corrupt and that the state has done too little with the revenues collected. Partly supporting this intuition, when asked about the perceived fairness of the fiscal system a majority of the respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement that »they get enough in exchange for taxes and fees«. Still, the result does not appear to be as negative as might have been expected; in fact, in two countries, the majority of respond­ents perceived the situation to be fair(see Figure 6.4). Considering alternative scenarios and how these are as­sessed, it is interesting to note what vision of the state people support. A clear majority of the informally employed support the idea that the state should support the poor, regardless of their capacity to contribute to the tax effort. Concretely, 69 per cent of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement»The government should provide ser­vices only to those persons and households that pay taxes 6 No comparison for the question on fees is available. and fees«. The value is consistently around 75 per cent in the different countries, with Senegal as an outlier with a majority of respondents(55 per cent) actually agreeing or strongly agreeing with the statement. Still, it can be said that in general there is a consistent strong support among the informally employed for solidarity and redistribution towards the weaker and a recognition of the necessity to support those in need regardless of their capacity to contribute. The survey also gives us some clues about the level of support of the informally employed for measures geared towards activating certain sources of revenue, and how the existing and potential additional tax burden should be distributed. A remarkable 72 per cent agree or strongly agree with the statement that everyone earning an income should pay taxes, suggesting that the tax burden should be borne by as many as possible and the tax base should include everyone with the economic capacity to contribute. Some 35 per cent support the claim that only wealthy citizens should have to pay taxes and fees. If we cross-tabulate these two questions we get some interesting results(Table 6.4). Probably the most telling data are at the bottom left and upper right. The upper right data indicate support for putting more fiscal pressure on the wealthy without necessarily making everyone with an income contribute. This suggests a highly progressive tax system focused on a narrow tax base of high income earners. By contrast the bottom left data indicate reluctance to put all 53