Technical Notes and Manuals
Technical Notes and Manuals are produced by IMF departments to expand the dissemination of their technical assistance advice. These papers present general advice and guidance, drawn in part from unpublished technical assistance reports, to a broader audience. This new series launched in September 2009.
2018
August 16, 2018
Resolution Funding: Who Pays When Financial Institutions Fail?
Description: A key element of the international reform agenda since the Global Financial Crisis has been to strengthen resolution regimes and make government bailouts the last, not first, resort. A new international standard prescribes a range of tools, powers, and funding arrangements needed to resolve “any financial institution that could be systemically significant or critical if it fails.” It recommends having resolution funding arrangements set up in advance, “so that authorities are not constrained to rely on public ownership or bail-out funds as a means of resolving firms.” It leaves open significant flexibility with respect to the arrangements that would provide the resources authorities will need to carry out effective resolution. This paper offers a framework for weighing the relative advantages of different resolution funding options that could meet the standard. It presents the main developments to date and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of different options.
2017
June 5, 2017
A Toolkit to Assess the Consistency Between Real Sector and Financial Sector Forecasts
Description: e develop a toolkit to assess the consistency between real sector and financial sector forecasts. The toolkit draws upon empirical regularities on real sector and financial sector outcomes for 182 economies from 1980 to 2015. We show that credit growth is positively correlated with real sector performance, in particular when credit growth is unusually high or low. However, the relationship between credit growth and inflation is weak. These results hold for different country groups, including advanced economies, emerging markets and low-income countries. Combining credit growth with other variables such as house prices and the output gap helps to understand real sector outcomes. But including the financial account balance does not make a difference.
June 1, 2017
Assessing Country Risk: Selected Approaches
Description: Assessing country risk is a core component of surveillance at the IMF. It is conducted through a comprehensive architecture, covering both bilateral and multilateral dimensions. This note describes some of the approaches used internally by Fund staff to examine a wide array of systemic risks across advanced, emerging, and low-income economies. It provides a high-level view of the theory and methodologies employed, with an on-line companion guide providing more technical details of implementation. The guide will be updated as Fund staff’s methodologies for assessing country risk continue to evolve with experience and feedback. While the results of these approaches are not published by the IMF for market sensitivity reasons, they inform risk assessments featured in bilateral surveillance as well as in the IMF’s flagship publications on global surveillance.
May 5, 2017
Revenue Administration: Implementing a High-Wealth Individual Compliance Program
Description: This technical note is provided as guidance to tax administrations that are considering a program to enhance the tax compliance of high wealth individuals. The note explains the rationale for a specialized compliance program for this segment of the taxpayer base and provides guidance on defining the population of wealthy individuals. Advice is also given on how to assess readiness for such a compliance program, taking into account the legal framework, the political environment, the availability of the necessary data and the administration’s capacity to implement it. The note then gives practical advice on implementing a high wealth individual compliance program, using the compliance risk management model as its foundation.
April 27, 2017
Expenditure Assessment Tool
Description: This manual presents the Expenditure Assessment Tool (EAT), which helps assess expenditures for any specific country. EAT uses the commonly available software program Excel and has been designed by Expenditure Policy Division at Fiscal Affairs Department at IMF. The information EAT provides can be very useful in the evaluation of government spending and in the identification of areas where there may be room to increase spending efficiency or rationalize spending. The evaluation is done through benchmarking of spending—levels, composition and outcomes—against regional and income comparators. The focus is on both the economic and functional classification of expenditures. The application of the tool to spending in Argentina is presented as an illustration.
April 13, 2017
The Revenue Administration–Gap Analysis Program: An Analytical Framework for Excise Duty Gap Estimation
Description: The IMF Fiscal Affairs Department’s Revenue Administration Gap Analysis Program (RA-GAP) assists revenue administrations from IMF member countries in monitoring taxpayer compliance through tax gap analysis. The RA-GAP analytical framework for estimating excise gaps presented in this Technical Note sets out the steps and data required for comprehensive top-down gap estimates based on a comparison of actual collections to potential collections, which is estimated from consumption (or use) and expenditure of excise commodities. The note outlines the motivation for, and different approaches to, excise gap estimation; and identifies the design criteria for robust gap estimates. The note was jointly produced by RA-GAP team and the Slovak Republic’s Institute for Financial Policy, piloting the framework for the mineral oils excise gap in Slovakia.
April 7, 2017
The Revenue Administration–Gap Analysis Program: Model and Methodology for Value-Added Tax Gap Estimation
Description: The IMF Fiscal Affairs Department’s Revenue Administration Gap Analysis Program (RA-GAP) assists revenue administrations from IMF member countries in monitoring taxpayer compliance through tax gap analysis. The RA-GAP methodology for estimating the VAT gap presented in this Technical Note has some distinct advantages over commonly used methodologies. By using a value-added approach to estimating potential VAT revenues, as compared to the more traditional final consumption approach used by most countries undertaking VAT gap estimation, the RA-GAP methodology can provide VAT compliance gap estimates on a sector-by-sector basis, which assists revenue administrations to better target compliance efforts to close the gap. In addition, the RA-GAP methodology uses a unique measurement for actual VAT revenues, which isolates changes in revenue performance that might be due to cash management (e.g., delays in refunds) from those due to actual changes in taxpayer compliance.
March 14, 2017
Use of Technology in Tax Administrations 3: Implementing a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Tax System
Description: This technical note is the third of three addressing information technology (IT) themes and issues relevant to tax administrations. This note focuses on implementation of a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) system in a developing country tax administration. The first note covers the use of IT in tax administrations and how to develop an information technology strategic plan (ITSP). The second note addresses how to select a suitable information technology system for core tax administration functions. These technical notes are primarily tax administrations that have no technology to manage their core tax processes, or their technology is limited and outdated. These notes focus on core tax functions and do not address other business systems (e.g., payroll, finance, document, and asset management systems).
March 14, 2017
Use of Technology in Tax Administrations 2: Core Information Technology Systems in Tax Administrations
Description: This technical note is the second of three addressing information technology (IT) themes and issues relevant to tax administrations. This note addresses how to select a suitable IT system for core tax administration functions. Note one covers the use of IT in tax administrations and how to develop an information technology strategic plan (ITSP). The third note focuses on implementation of a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) system. These technical notes are primarily for tax administrations that have no technology to manage their core tax processes, or their technology is limited and outdated. These notes focus on core tax functions and do not address other business systems (e.g., payroll, finance, document, and asset management systems).
March 14, 2017
Use of Technology in Tax Administrations 1: Developing an Information Technology Strategic Plan (ITSP)
Description: This technical note is the first of three addressing information technology (IT) themes and issues relevant to tax administrations. This note focuses on the use of technology in tax administrations and how to develop an information technology strategic plan (ITSP). It is intended for tax administrations that are largely manual or have outdated legacy IT systems. The second note addresses how to select an IT system for core tax administrations functions. And the third note covers implementation of a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) system. These technical notes are primarily for use by tax administrations that have no technology to manage their core tax processes, or their technology is limited and outdated. These notes focus on core tax functions and do not address other business systems (e.g., payroll, finance, document, and asset management systems).