Training for More Efficient Tax Administration Reform Initiatives

During the recent Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, the CEF met with the Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool (TADAT) Secretariat (TS) to discuss future cooperation in strengthening the capacities of tax administrations in South East Europe (SEE). TADAT is a tool, developed in a multi-donor partnership, which provides a standardized performance assessment of a country’s system of tax administration.

The purpose of the TADAT framework is to help countries identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of their tax administration systems, establish reform priorities and implementation sequencing, and provide a basis for monitoring and evaluating reform progress towards established outcomes by using repeat assessments.

We have recently launched a project “Supporting Capacity Development of Tax Administrations in South East Europe” that focuses on ways to improve the efficiency of revenue collection and to achieve compliance at minimum costs, both for taxpayers and the administrations themselves. We believe that TADAT and our own initiative are mutually reinforcing and can substantially influence and strengthen the framing of governments’ reform plans for revenue administration systems.

The IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) hosts the TADAT Secretariat. The IMF FAD and CEF have a long established relationship. Two of IMF FAD’s regional technical assistance advisors for South East Europe are based at our premises and use the CEF as the hub for their missions. Mr. Steffen Normann Hansen, IMF Tax Administration Reform Advisor for South East Europe, has been working with tax administrations in the region to help them improve taxpayer compliance, increase transparency and build trust in the tax administration by phasing in a modern Compliance Risk Model (CRM).

For more information on the work of the TADAT Secretariat, TADAT methodology, and their newly designed online course TADATx: Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool – Training for Assessors, which will be launched on May 21, please see their web page: http://www.tadat.org/index.html