Gender and incidence of indirect taxation: Evidence from Uganda

Since the 1990's, Uganda system has undergone various reforms. However, both tax policies and reforms have been formulated without clearly indication the channels through which gender impacts on these policies/reforms. Using the national household survey of 2005/06, this paper provided insight into how tax policies and reforms on indirect taxes impact differently on women and men. The incidence rate of tax gender-based household typologies controlled by expenditure quintile brings out interesting findings. The incidence rate of indirect tax is significantly greater on households headed by male compared to their female counterparts regardless of income level. This also holds after controlling for the presence of children. More importantly, the impact on different households typologies is largely influenced by differences in consumption patterns. future tax reforms should take these gender differences in account as a means of improving the social welfare of every Ugandan