World Personal Income Tax Database: extending the TaxDev employment income taxes dataset (EITD) to self-employment and capital income

This project aims to extend the TaxDev Employment Income Taxes Dataset (EITD) by incorporating the taxation of self-employment and capital income for resident individuals. The first phase will focus on selected sources of capital income, covering Sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2010–2025, with the aim of generating a new publicly available dataset.

The project responds to a major evidence gap: in many low- and middle-income countries, research and data focus mainly on labour income, while little is known about how capital income is taxed. Yet differences in the tax treatment of wages, self-employment, and capital have important implications for fairness, efficiency, and the ability of governments to raise revenues. By compiling information on statutory tax rates, tax base definitions, exemptions and reliefs, and by calculating stylised effective tax rates for hypothetical individuals, the dataset will make it possible to understand how tax systems affect individuals with different income sources.

The project will help identify key trade-offs in tax design between equity, efficiency, and revenue, strengthening personal income tax policy in partner countries and beyond. By addressing critical data gaps, it will support reforms, enable comparisons across countries and over time, and provide a valuable resource for international benchmarking, learning, and future research.