What was the impact of this event on your work?

I am very excited to have participated in this CEF learning initiative, organized in June by the CEF and the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration. This training course gave me a chance to enlarge my professional network, hear about the experiences of other countries, learn how to use some effective tools, like active data in Excel, and improve my skills in analysis and e-auditing. We also discussed the problems that we are facing and how to overcome them. Later on I shared my experience with colleagues in Armenia.  

What do you think about the delivery of the workshop?

The workshop was excellently structured. At the beginning we shared our experiences with the level of IT usage, IT audit tolls and also recent trends, which gave us a good picture of the current situation and problems in each country. Then we had discussions, group work, exercises and case studies that made us understand what kind of tools are useful in e-auditing, how we can use Excel functions for better control, and what we have to do in general for better audit results. 

The lecturers made great presentations about the experience of the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration with e-auditing. At the end of the training course, we had gained a much bigger picture of what we have now and, more importantly, what we are going to face in the upcoming years, as well as what we should do to keep up with the rapidly developing e-commerce and e-world. We are now in Armenia in the process of understanding what kind of amendments we should make in our tax legislation and how to incorporate new tools. 

How did you share your experience with colleagues? 

When I returned to work, I had to write a report on what I had learnt and make a presentation about my experience with the CEF learning initiative. Colleagues from different departments of the Tax and Customs Administration, who were interested in the topic, came to listen and discuss how and what each of them could use in their daily work.  

What did they think of your presentation? Did they give you any feedback? 

My colleagues found the presentation interesting and useful. After the presentation we had a discussion about how we could use this new information and tools. Each participant got the information and materials that they needed for their department. Most importantly, all of us started to see the bigger picture, including problems that we might face and that we need to prepare for. 

Moreover, people noted the importance of sharing experience with colleagues after coming back from international seminars, as there are many good professionals with language barriers and this is a good chance for them to learn about the training topics and take part in discussions. 

I believe that some lessons learned from my presentation will be taken into consideration, which may contribute to the improvement of institutional performance. For example, I believe that our audit department should concentrate on more efficient and correct auditing, and implement a standard audit file, like the one that we discussed at the training course.  

Last but not least, I am now involved in a working group that is drafting legislation for regulating the taxation of e-commerce in Eurasian Economic Union countries.