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

Abstract

This study invokes fiscal federalism literature by examining tax reforms-intergovernmental fiscal transfers policy relationships in local government. Additionally, it investigates whether the governance forum mediates that association. Employing structural equation modeling, data from eight districts, two municipalities, and 80 sub-counties in Uganda’s North-Western region were tested. 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-research-practice triangulation are discussed and future research direction has also been proposed.