Abstract

There are many conflict and post-conflict countries in Africa, including, but not limited to, Chad, Libya, Eritrea, Tunisia, Egypt, Rwanda, the Central African Republic and the Republic of South Sudan, the youngest country in the world at the time of the writing of this article. From a fiscal perspective, post-conflict and conflict states experience similar problems: the maintenance of peace (a substantial drain on resources), heavy dependence on donor aid and a traumatised and impoverished population, largely unaware of their citizenship responsibilities, including tax responsibilities, their primary focus, understandably, being on physical survival. This article focuses on improvements in fiscal literacy and taxpayer literacy, to encourage tax compliance amongst the residents of South Sudan. Schumpeter’s theory of the fiscal state, as developed further by Ormrod and Bonney’s typology of the fiscal state (comprising tribute, domain, tax and fiscal state taxation systems) is used to position the South Sudanese fiscal state in order to develop an understanding of the challenges the country faces in future progression of its development. The Ormrod-Bonney model has, previously, been further developed and applied in Africa (Kenya and Rwanda) and the article extends application of the model to South Sudan.