Foreword

This report on taxpayer education builds on the work started in 2013, which led to the publication in 2015 of the report Building Tax Culture, Compliance and Citizenship: A Global Source Book on Taxpayer Education. It goes further by not only reviewing the initiatives taking place in 59 developed and developing countries, but also by offering a comprehensive view of the links between those initiatives. It focuses on activities conducted by national tax administrations while acknowledging the importance of civil society regarding taxpayer education.

This report provides internationally comparative data on taxpayer education initiatives and has benefited from input of the members of the OECD Forum on Tax Administration. It aims at being practical by offering a methodology and the necessary knowledge to choose, design and implement new initiatives (or to improve existing ones). We hope it will serve as a guide to development practitioners on how to include taxpayer education modules in their future development co-operation programmes. We also hope that it can be an inspiration for the development of strategies, outreach and literacy campaigns.

Through this report, we aim to further stimulate the global discussion on the importance of taxpayer education, especially in lower-income countries. More broadly, this report is part of the OECD work on tax morale, which seeks to promote research, debate, and action to better understand and encourage voluntary compliance in taxation. It is only through widespread voluntary compliance that countries will be able to raise the revenues necessary to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.