African Tax and Customs Review (ATCR) is a Quarterly Review dedicated to high quality scholarly and technical articles on Taxation, Customs, Fiscal Policy and Management, Public Finance and related disciplines. As its name suggests, ATCR is dedicated to issues that affect the African continent. ATCR is a culmination of many years of consultations among tax and customs administrators, policy think tanks and other stakeholders on the
need for a Journal of this nature to address specific African issues. The main objective of ATCR is to provide a platform for policy makers, scholars, practitioners, experts, academicians, and researchers to share contemporary thoughts in these fields. While the general layout of ATCR largely conforms to a typical format of an academic journal, its substance encompasses much more. The contents of this Quarterly Review include
research articles, tax policy reviews, tax rulings, expert opinions and emerging issues. In this respect, ATCR aims to be a thought leader in Taxation, Customs, Fiscal Policy and Management, Public Finance and related disciplines in Africa, and a reference point for the rest of the world on these critical disciplines. 

The key mission of ATCR is therefore, to avail a platform for use by researchers, scholars, academicians, experts and practitioners who seek to investigate, more deeply and incisively, the emerging frontiers of Tax and Customs Policy and Administration in Africa. By so doing, they should be in a much better position to design and utilize homegrown research approaches and tools capable of confronting the continent's fiscal challenges.
Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), has thus taken up the mantle to create a platform through which tax and customs professionals will share ideas, innovations and emerging frontiers on taxation and customs in Africa. ATCR will be hosted at KRA’s Tax and Customs School, the Kenya School of Revenue Administration (KESRA). Last October, KESRA held its first Research Conference on the theme “Taxation in a Digitized Economy.” This conference brought together participants from across Africa, North America, South America, Asia and Europe. About 30 academic and technical papers were submitted for the conference.

This inaugural Issue No. 1 of ATCR (September-December 2018), carries 6 of the conference papers that have undergone peer review by top scholars and professionals in Tax and Customs. A similar number of papers will be published in Issue No. 2, covering the period January to March 2019. We recognize that this small number of research papers, the issues carried therein, and the debates that they generate, by no means exhaustively address the contemporary realities of African fiscal landscape. Nonetheless, we are excited to present them as a launching pad for future engagements on this important area of taxation. 

Africa is diverse in many respects that include, but not restricted to geography, culture, language, tax technology in use, and many other attributes that affect taxation. A continental Journal cannot be truly representative until it carries issues that affect people from all the regions of the continent. Although it is a daunting task, it is achievable. We are alive to this huge responsibility that the African continent has placed on our shoulders, and do promise to do everything possible to make this Journal as relevant and exciting to diverse reader groups as possible. The beauty of taxation is that it affects all citizens of a country in one way or another. Typically, everybody would benefit by reading a journal on taxation, and it is the intention of ACTR to reach as wide African audience as possible. Yet modern taxation is increasingly embracing statistics and econometric tools to carry out analyses. To balance the needs of scholars, practitioners, tax administrators and the general reader, this Journal creates a delicate balance between the technical rigor normally associated with quantitative economics and a good amount of “soft” details for the benefit of general readers. Care has however, been taken not to compromise on the necessary analytical quality in an attempt to achieve wider readership. With the envisaged expansion of ATCR to further address African diversity, we intend to translate future issues of the publication into French and Portuguese to bring on board our Francophone colleagues from some countries of North, West and Central Africa, and the Lusophone countries of Angola and Mozambique. Hopefully, this will be achieved within the next two years of this inaugural publication. 

This inaugural issue of ATCR has benefitted tremendously from partnerships, collaborations, support and goodwill of continental and global organizations. Among these organizations are World Customs Organization’s Regional Office for Capacity Building (ESA, ROCB), African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF), International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD), Munster University, London School of Economics, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Political Science (LSE), among others. We hope this Journal will be the catalyst for rethinking Africa’s fiscal strategy.