Tax Policy and Administration: Theory and Practice
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Bibliographic details
- Session: CE 24.02
- Location: Kuwait City, Kuwait
- Dates: January 21-25, 2024 (1 week)
- Delivery method: In-person Training
- Primary language: English
- Interpretation language: Arabic
- Status: Deadline passed
Target audience and qualifications
- Target audience:
- Senior officials from ministries of finance and tax administrations whose responsibilities include advising ministers on tax policy issues or managing tax administration.
- Duties likely include policy analysis and evaluation; drafting policy proposals; drafting tax laws; and in tax administrations managing organizational issues, strategic planning, information technology, and other major operational functions.
- Qualifications:
- Participants involved in policy areas: expected to have a degree in economics, law, or a related field, and experience in producing analytical reports.
- Participants involved in tax administration areas: expected to be senior managers from the top two levels of their agency.
Course description — scope and pedagogical approach
- Purpose:
- Broaden participants’ knowledge of the main challenges governments face in designing, administering, and monitoring a modern tax system.
- Outline theoretical underpinnings of tax policymaking and discuss in detail practice and implementation with an emphasis on the region the course is directed to.
- Teaching methods:
- Lectures, Q&A sessions, and workshops.
- Encourages participant experience-sharing in developing strategies to improve tax systems and their implementation and administration.
- The course:
- Provides an overview of policy design principles and their implications for tax administration—establishing linkages between tax policy and administration and showing how functions feed into one another.
- Reviews design issues for major taxes that form modern tax systems (e.g., broad-based consumption and income taxes, property taxes, excises, and small business tax regimes) and discusses approaches to tax policymaking in specific economic and institutional settings, such as resource-rich countries, fragile countries, and countries in economic blocs/customs unions, international taxation (e.g., taxation of the digital economy).
- Discusses the organization and operations of tax administrations and the management of tax compliance, drawing on experiences within and beyond the region.
- Gives an overview of emerging and topical issues in tax policy and administration and their implications for tax systems in each region.
Course objectives — competencies on completion
- Upon completion of the course, participants should be able to:
- Summarize key tax policy design principles and their implications for tax administrations, such as how to link tax policy and tax administration; how functions feed into one another; and how design principles may differ in different economic settings.
- Identify the core elements of the major taxes in modern tax systems, such as broad-based consumption and income taxes, property taxes, or small business tax regimes.
- Recognize the impact and consequences of specific policies usually in place in some countries (reduced rates, exemptions, tax incentives, delay in refund tax credits and restrictions to input tax deductions in the VAT or expenses in the CIT, etc.)
- Identify the main problems affecting international taxation and the tools to reduce them (transfer pricing regulations, exchange of information among countries, etc.)
- Describe and analyze the organization and core functions of modern tax administrations, and the key challenges and approaches to managing tax compliance.
- Summarize common barriers and approaches to tax system reform, including the formulation of a Medium-Term Revenue Strategy (MTRS).
- Explain new tools for the assessment and analyses of a tax system, including the Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool (TADAT), Revenue Administration Gap Analysis Program (RA-GAP), Tax Expenditure Assessment Tool, International Survey on Revenue Administration (ISORA), etc.
Key technical elements emphasized
- Linkages between tax policy design and tax administration operations and management.
- Design and implementation issues for:
- Broad-based consumption taxes (including VAT design features such as input tax deductions and refund mechanisms).
- Income taxes (corporate and personal), including CIT expense treatments.
- Property taxes, excises, and small business tax regimes.
- Special economic and institutional settings:
- Resource-rich countries.
- Fragile countries.
- Countries in economic blocs/customs unions.
- International taxation challenges, including the taxation of the digital economy.
- Tax administration topics:
- Organization and core functions of modern tax administrations.
- Management of tax compliance.
- Strategic planning and information technology considerations.
References