The Second Workshop on the Measurement of Tax Transaction Costs (TTC) in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) was held in Panama on November 20 and 21, as part of the activities of the CIAT project for Strengthening the Institutional Capacities of National Tax Administrations (NTAs) and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social of the Affairs UN-DESA.

ATNs Delegates from 13 Latin American countries and representatives of institutions such as IFC, ECLAC, SYNAPSIS and SEBRAE participated in the event which was a good opportunity to present the results of the measurements carried out in Costa Rica and Uruguay, and to learn about the progress of the measurement being done in Brazil. The workshop also allowed us to identify topics for future researches in the TTC field which may complement the project efforts.

The project mainly aimed strengthening the capacity of the NTAs to analyze, measure, and simplify tax procedures and processes in order to reduce the TTC in SMEs and in the medium term, help strengthen fiscal revenues of the countries in the region. TTC are compliance costs faced by taxpayers to comply with their tax obligations and costs faced by the tax authority to enforce the tax system.

The implementation of the project was conducted by the CIAT Tax Studies and Research Directorate with the participation of international consultants Byron Vasconez (in charge), Marcel Ramírez and Eduardo Ibarra. It is important to note that this project is an important step for the CIAT Studies Program since it opens the door to a second generation of research: those based on microdata. This strengthens the causal analysis that can be carried out on the tax transaction costs phenomenon. This work is expected to contribute improving the tax administration’s efforts to promote voluntary compliance.