Uganda, April 20 -- Kampala traders, who deal mostly in imported merchandise, are up in arms against a new move by the government to collect value-added taxes. Not for the first, but it had been a while since taxes occupied centre-stage in Uganda's public square and political discourse.

The last time we had a major traders' strike against taxation was in fact when the government first introduced value-added tax in 1996 to replace the Commercial Transaction levy.

The capacity to assess, impose and effectively collect taxes is at the heart of modern statehood. It is a key measure of the quality of government and stateness because the average, rational citizen is inclined to avoid paying taxes, thus coercion of some form is necessary to fo...