Tax Policy and Administration: Theory and Practice (TPAT)

Source details

Target audience:
- Senior officials from ministries of finance and tax administrations whose responsibilities include advising ministers on tax policy issues or managing tax administration.
- Officials with duties including 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.

Purpose:
- Designed to broaden participants’ knowledge of the main challenges governments face in designing, administering, and monitoring a modern tax system.
- Briefly outlines theoretical underpinnings of tax policymaking and discusses in detail practice and implementation, with emphasis on the region the course is directed to.
Teaching methods:
- Lectures, Q&A sessions, and workshops.
- Participants are encouraged to share experiences in developing strategies to improve tax systems and their implementation and administration.
Key linkages emphasized:
- Establishing linkages between tax policy and administration and showing how functions feed into one another.

Reviews and design issues for major taxes in modern tax systems:
- Broad-based consumption taxes
- Income taxes
- Property taxes
- Excises
- Small business tax regimes
Contextual approaches:
- Tax policymaking and administration in resource-rich countries, fragile countries, and countries in economic blocs/customs‑unions
- International taxation topics including taxation of the digital economy and taxation of multinational enterprises
Organization and operations of tax administrations:
- Management of tax compliance
- Organizational and operational experiences within and beyond the region
Emerging and topical issues:
- Overview of emerging issues in tax policy and administration and implications for regional tax systems

Summarize key tax policy design principles and their implications for tax administrations, including how to link tax policy and tax administration and how functions feed into one another.
Identify the core elements of 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, including:
- reduced rates
- exemptions
- tax incentives
- delay in refund tax credits and restrictions to input tax deductions in the VAT or expenses in the CIT
Identify main problems affecting international taxation and understand tools to reduce them, including:
- transfer pricing regulations
- exchange of information among countries
- the on‑going international corporate tax reform
Describe and analyze the organization and core functions of modern tax administrations, and 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).
Understand new tools for assessment and analysis of a tax system, including:
- Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool (TADAT)
- Revenue Administration Gap Analysis Program (RA-GAP)
- Tax Expenditure Assessment Tool
- International Survey on Revenue Administration (ISORA)