RA-FIT Technical Working Group (TWG) Meeting: May 27 and 28, 2015
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| TWG members from the Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations (CIAT), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Intra-European Organization of Tax Administrations (IOTA), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) met in Washington DC over May 27 and 28, 2015 to progress its work to establish a common data set for information on member tax administrations. The meeting also continued its work to establish a common platform for the collection of these data in line with the principles of cooperation agreed in the Letter of Intent signed by all the organizations in October 2014.
The major outcomes from the meeting were an agreed preliminary set of core questions that organizations could use in gathering information on tax administration from their members, and the establishment of guidelines for determining the characteristics for a question to be considered core. This is an extremely positive development and harmonizes a significant part of the participating organizations’ data needs. It enables the TWG members to now assess the feasibility of using the RA-FIT platform to collect this data using a shared survey. The TWG intends testing the agreed preliminary set of core questions with a number of volunteer respondents across the respective organizations’ memberships in the coming months. The purpose of this user testing is to ensure suitability and robustness of proposed questions and also to obtain formal comments and suggestions for improvement in advance of finalizing the core question set. The TWG will meet again on July 15 to 17, 2015 to agree on a collection process and approach for interacting with members, including the role of RA-FIT; agree the terms of reference for the TWG; and confirm the broad principles to be incorporated into a Memorandum of Understanding between the organizations. |