Exploring Opportunities for Future Co-operation between CEF and IOTA

At the invitation of the Intra-European Organisation of Tax Administrations (IOTA), we recently attended the workshop on »Strategies to Transform Ageing IT Systems«. As we continuously pay particular attention to how we can engage with similar institutions, the event was an excellent opportunity to explore the possibilities of future working co-operation between the CEF and IOTA.

Both IOTA and CEF serve tax administrations in South East Europe (SEE) where we have full overlap in the geographic coverage. In addition, sharing of best practices and exchange of solutions developed and implemented by different countries in practical tax administration issues is at the heart of training events of both organizations. The idea behind here is to offer tax officials easily accessible profiles of countries’ tax systems, and the policies adopted to improve those systems, that could inspire reforms at home. Similarities in our work guide us to align our efforts in finding future opportunities to address capacity development needs of tax administrations across SEE.

The workshop took place on December 12-14, 2014 in Budapest, Hungary. The overall objective of the event was to highlight different strategies implemented by IOTA member administrations to identify and manage the risks related to their ageing IT systems.