Local Tax Reforms and Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers Policy: The Relevance of Governance Forum

Abstract

This study invokes fiscal federalism literature by examining tax reformsintergovernmental fiscal transfers policy relationship in local government. Additionally, it investigates whether a governance forum mediates that association. Data from eight districts, two municipalities, and 80 subcounties in Uganda's North-Western region were tested employing structural equation modeling. For quite a long time, Uganda, an East African country, has been acclaimed for its federalism proficiency. Findings indicate that: much as tax autonomy, coordination capacity, tax inconsistency, and corruption; notable tax reforms attributes, predict transfers policy changes, governance forum plays no mediation role in the tax reforms-transfers policy set-up. Implications for theory-researchpractice triangulation are discussed, and future research direction has also been proposed.

Keywords

• local government
• local tax reforms
• governance forum
• fiscal transfers policy