Liberia, Aug. 18 -- LIBERIA IS ABOUT to do something it has never done in its history: collect more than one billion United States dollars in domestic revenue in a single year. On the figures reported this week, the country will very likely cross that line in September. It is worth pausing on what that means, and, more importantly, on what it does not yet mean.

THE TRAJECTORY is not in dispute. Domestic revenue has climbed from US$612 million in 2023 to US$848 million last year, and is on course for something above US$1.2 billion by December - a doubling of the base in three years, achieved not through new taxes but through the unglamorous work of tax administration, digitized filing, and tighter customs enforcement. Three years have add...