Tax is good!

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Tax is good. The American judge, Oliver Wendell Holmes junior put it this way: "Taxes are the price we pay for civilisation". But how do poorer countries, for example in Africa, actually establish a working tax base? The BBC's Umaru Fofana has been out and about with a tax inspector in Sierra Leone. Plus, Lesley Curwen talks to Nkosana Moyo, the Chief Operating Officer of the African Development Bank, about what happens when small companies avoid getting registered in order to escape paying taxes. And Professor Paul Collier, Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University, explains why every state needs to establish a working tax system. Plus, Marie Edwards, from the UK's tax collection agency, tells Lesley Curwen about the history of some of Britain's more peculiar taxes, including a tax on dogs.