## A TAXING JOURNEY — How Civic Actors Influence Tax Policy (Paolo de Renzio, ed.)

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**Canonical URL:** [A TAXING JOURNEY — How Civic Actors Influence Tax Policy (Paolo de Renzio, ed.)](https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2024/03/books-mauro.pdf)

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### Overview
- Book title: A TAXING JOURNEY — How Civic Actors Influence Tax Policy.
- Editor: Paolo de Renzio.
- Publication details from source: Bloomsbury Academic, New York, NY, 2024, 240 pp., $103.50.
- Review author: Paolo Mauro.
- Context in review: Appears in F&D Book Reviews, page 65, MARCH 2024.
- Central thesis quoted: “This book is part of a broader rethinking about tax policy, with fairness at its core.”

### Case studies and examples documented
- Guatemala: A technically sophisticated group of former public officials holding an opaque and ineffective tax administration to account.
- Mexico: A CSO putting a halt to tax amnesties.
- Philippines: A campaign for higher taxes on alcohol and tobacco.
- Kenya–Mauritius: A pan-African research and advocacy organization using the courts to delay an agreement between Kenya and Mauritius on avoidance of double taxation (allegation in some accounts that the agreement would have led to more, rather than less, tax avoidance).
- Uganda: A campaign against a tax on mobile money transfers and on the use of social media.
- United States (state-level): Three state-level campaigns in Massachusetts, Maine, and Minnesota seeking to increase taxes on the wealthy.
- France: The yellow vest (gilets jaunes) movement—identified as an outlier—triggered by an increase in fuel taxes shortly after the repeal of a wealth tax; noted for its protest nature and associated acts of violence but useful for comparison.

### Key findings and observations
- Civic actors can and do influence tax reforms across countries at various stages of economic and institutional development.
- Successes documented are partial: “In none of these cases did the civic actors achieve complete success, whether in terms of quality or durability of outcomes.”
- Technical expertise is a critical ingredient for success:
  - Successful CSOs often included former public finance officials or collaborated with organizations, legislators with expert staff, or government officials.
  - “Engaging in tax reform debates requires technical capacity.”
- Effective strategies highlighted:
  - Constructing narratives.
  - Building alliances.
  - Leveraging domestic institutions (such as the courts).
  - Combining messaging, politics, and technical expertise—each requires time to develop.
- Normative shift noted: The book is part of “a broader rethinking about tax policy,” moving away from excessive emphasis on economic efficiency toward centering fairness as what voters care about.
- The book both documents civic actors pushing for more equitable taxation and resisting inequitable taxation.

### Methodological scope and limitations
- Case selection bias acknowledged: Cases were selected because they were successful, at least in part.
- Purpose: The project aimed to inspire activists, practitioners, and researchers—not to establish causality or to document failures (failures were deliberately omitted).
- Readers seeking methodologically tight analysis and conclusive results may be disappointed; the work offers balanced narrative episodes rather than causal inference.

### Implications for practitioners, activists, and researchers
- For CSOs and civic actors:
  - Invest in technical capacity or partnerships with technical experts.
  - Prioritize narrative-building and alliance formation alongside technical analysis.
  - Use domestic institutions (including courts) strategically when appropriate.
- For researchers:
  - There is scope for further analysis on how and when civic actors can influence tax policy and advance fairness.
  - Comparative and failure-case research are indicated as gaps given the book’s positive-case selection.
- For policymakers:
  - Recognition that civic engagement can shape tax outcomes and that fairness considerations matter politically.

*Review by Paolo Mauro, director of the Economic and Market Research Department at the International Finance Corporation.*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2024/03/books-mauro.pdf_