June 19, 2008 – Participants from member countries and officials from CIAT’s Executive Secretariat have recently met to discuss the development of a benchmarking program in tax administration.

The following people participated in the meeting: Martín Slemenson from Argentina, Normand Theberge from Canada, Barry Shott from the United States and Pablo Marroquín from Guatemala. Furthermore, Claudino Pita, Marcio Verdi, Marc Amouroux and Socorro Velázquez participated on behalf of CIAT’s Secretariat.

During the meeting, the participants discussed benchmarking programs in their tax administrations. In addition, they showed that  there are similar programs in their organizations which establish performance indicators and analyzers although they are not referred to as “benchmarking programs”. These indicators are used to compare past versus present management rather to be measured against other organizations.

At the meeting, it was noted that, since benchmarking studies among member countries are not a sensible option due to the difficulty and complexity in finding fully analogous tax administrations for comparative purposes, CIAT must develop a benchmarking program which may help tax administrations measure their performance. If they wish so, with the results obtained they may choose to be compared with similar tax administrations. CIAT may also facilitate information on the “good practices” developed by tax administrations of member countries which, after adjustment, may also be used by other members to improve their performance. The ultimate purpose is to develop these tools and make them available from CIAT’s Website.