Informal Taxation in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone: Taxpayers’ Experiences and Perceptions

In low-income and post-conflict countries, and particularly in rural areas, citizens often pay a range of ‘taxes’ that differ substantially from statutory policies.

These ‘informal taxes’, paid to a variety of state and non-state actors, are frequently overlooked in analyses of local systems of taxation. This is problematic, as it leads to misunderstandings of individual and household tax burdens, as well as of systems of local governance.