A systematised review of the literature related to the impact of corruption on revenue authorities’ performance

Abstract

Background: Corruption is a term that has been defined as the abuse of public power and funds for personal gain. Many revenue authorities around the world, from both developing and developed countries, have struggled with performing effectively and efficiently because of corruption. This study conducts a systematic review of the available literature on the impact of corruption on the performance of revenue authorities. Main purpose of study: The main purpose of this study is to systematically explore the existing body of literature related to the impact of corruption on the performance of revenue authorities, focusing on selected peer reviewed journal articles published in quality academic journals. Method: The study followed a systematic literature review. Keywords that were in line with the research topic were selected and used to search for the peer reviewed journal articles from databases available on the University of Pretoria online library. A criterion was used to include and exclude journal articles from the study and only journal articles published between 2005 and 2020 were included in the study. Results: For this study Seventy-six articles were obtained but only thirty-nine met the criteria and were selected. It was found that corruption impacts revenue authorities in a number of ways such as reduction in tax collection, increase in taxpayer non-compliance, reduction in effectiveness of revenue authorities and reduction in the redistributive function of the revenue authority. The study found that corruption negatively impacts the performance of revenue authorities and the biggest impact is on the tax collection by revenue authorities. Due to its secretive nature, it is hard to determine the full impact of corruption to the performance of revenue authorities. Conclusion: The purpose of the current study was to provide a structured overview of published peer reviewed articles in order to determine what impact corruption has on the performance of revenue authorities. The study finds that corruption has a negative impact on the performance of revenue authorities. The study was subject to certain limitations due to the nature of the study. The limitations being; it was only limited to journal articles published in academic journals published on or after 2005 which were available on the University of Pretoria‘s online library. Recommendations for future research based on the current study include performing more case study research on corruption, research on automated tax systems‘ impact on corruption, as well as a study on the comparison of tax culture and revenue performance between developing and developed countries.