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Tanzania study finds tax officer visits can lower trust in poor areas

Published

Researchers working with the International Centre for Tax and Development and Tanzania's tax administration tested what happens when tax officers become more visible. Trust and tax payments rose in richer, better-integrated areas but fell in poorer, more marginalised ones.

The team added a randomised trial to a face-to-face survey of 1,210 small businesses in December 2022. In 119 urban and peri-urban wards, a tax officer sat in silently on interviews, while the other wards had none. The researchers then compared survey answers with tax records covering about 40,000 businesses. They say trust and compliance moved together. The authors wrote about their work in an article, and the page we read does not show the full results or a peer-reviewed journal.

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Elections Hot

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Voting in the 2026 Local Government Elections is under way at 23,696 stations, and the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) reported a smooth start on 4 November. Stations opened at 7am and close at 9pm, and by 10am preliminary figures showed 3,523,691 voters had cast ballots.

There were problems: unused ballot papers were stolen from Mnyameni Secondary School near Durban, police opened a case, and the IEC relieved the station staff of duty. Some voters in Tshwane said they were turned away for wearing party shirts, but the IEC denied this and said only mayoral candidates' entourages were barred.

ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe told members not to query the results or discredit the IEC, while the IEC said false online claims show routine procedures as fraud.

  1. IEC dismisses MK Party worry about dead people on voters' roll
  2. IEC says local election voting went largely smoothly
  3. IEC says about 12 million had voted by 5pm

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US mid-terms Heating up

What you need to know

Democrats won back both the US House and Senate in the midterm elections held on 3 November, according to media projections. Exit polls showed voters were angry about high prices and the direction of the country, and rebuked President Donald Trump.

Before the vote, US forces struck targets on Qeshm Island in Iran, while Republicans struggled to defend the war against Iran on the campaign trail. Iranian officials said US voters rejected the war, and Tehran stayed on high alert for possible new US strikes.

Markets reacted, with the dollar hitting a one-month low and the rand firming to around R16.55, as analysts pointed to fears of gridlock in Washington.

  1. Iran welcomes Democratic wins in US midterm elections
  2. Democrats win US Congress in midterm vote, projections show
  3. Ramaphosa wants US trade deal after AGOA suspension

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AI Cooling

What you need to know

Nvidia has told its cloud computing clients to sell at least 51% of their services to non-Chinese companies, according to five people with knowledge of the matter. Anthropic said it has committed to spend close to $900bn on AI infrastructure, and that its computing costs are rising faster than its revenues.

Elsewhere, reports from unnamed sources say OpenAI's latest funding round is falling short of expectations, and a judge let the NAACP pollution case against xAI proceed. In South Africa, the VAST AI investment scheme went offline on 30 October after withdrawals marked approved did not arrive, according to a news investigation.

  1. Accenture faces accusations over AI report with false citations
  2. CrowdStrike to buy two AI security startups
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