Decentralisation and tax interactions between actors: what lessons the Cameroonians experience?

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to question the relevance of the theoretical foundations of tax interactions between actors within the framework of administrative decentralisation in Cameroon. Indeed, the theoretical research reflects two explanatory logics to these interactions. The first assumes the potential mobility of tax-bases of Tiebout (1956), Zodrow and Mieszkowski (1986), Wildasin (1988) and Hoyt (1991). The second is based on the agency relationship between the actors through the assumption of political competition comparison by Hirschman (1970), Brennan and Buchanan (1980). In Cameroon, a theoretical study of decentralisation shows that the legislature opted for a part in a tax equalisation as a solution to the phenomenon of spatial segregation or 'social apartheid' and to the other hand to a centralised tax management level of the central government to curb the dangers of the mobility of the tax-base and political sanction by the population - voter. Therefore, two major lessons from this: first, 'the local tax policy is specific to each country and takes into account the contextual specificities' and second, 'the choice of tax decentralisation must take into account the mobility of tax-bases'.