We offer technical assistance to the member countries tax administrations that request it, including sub-national administrations, customs and exceptionally to countries not members of CIAT
STRATEGY
The technical assistance provided by CIAT attends to specific requirements of the member countries administrations. They are addressed through medium- and long-term projects, financed by the administrations themselves through their budgets or through loans from development agencies; or short and medium term projects financed with funding from donors and development agencies managed by the Executive Secretariat.
| MODALITIES|
There are different ways in which CIAT provides assistance with varying degrees of formality. According to the extent and the degree of participation of the CIAT
Tax administrations may request technical assistance to be executed directly by officials from the Executive Secretariat.
In general, the tax administration requesting this assistance should cover travel expenses and per diems of officials and the direct and indirect costs of the officials during the time that the Executive Secretariat invest in the assistance.
This type of assistance may be given in the following areas:
In the case of implementation of projects, CIAT provides technical assistance in tax administration services to serve the needs and interests expressed by the member countries and associated countries, through activities of diagnosis, follow-up and evaluation of projects, aimed at strengthening their administrations.
These activities are structured in projects and defined in terms of their scope, responsibilities, deliverables, timelines and costs on contracts, memorandums of understanding or global cooperation agreements that incorporate specific projects by addendum.
These projects are coordinated by the Technical Assistance Directorate and International Cooperation, through the Technical Assistance Management or the International Cooperation Directorate, for those that are financed with funds from donors, and are implemented through the participation of consultants.
Consultants involved in these projects are part of the organization’s database, including officials or former officials of tax administrations, coordinated and directed by CIAT to develop the activities established in the projects.
The costs in this category is established case by case, and include elements such as advances, insurance and contingencies. The cost structure is normally presented to the tax administration which receives the assistance. The CIAT adds a charge of between 14% and 20% of the value of the contract for management and supervision costs.
| AREAS OF ACTION |
Administration processes
Human Talent Development
Strategy and Planning
Tax studies
Exchange of information
Administration and risk management
Various modernization projects developed have incorporated techniques and systems analysis of risk management that go beyond the guidance to audit case selection and control of compliance. Over time, various risk models developed have been developed and perfected, both in internal taxes as in customs; they are characterized by the determination of the probability of noncompliance and the estimation of the impact that such noncompliance would cause.
Taxpayer assitance
These are projects oriented to create a platform for multichannel attention, supported both in face-to-face attention or through a website, or by telephone. This includes issues of provision of services of equal quality through different channels; the incorporation of themes that generate corporate identity and to the creation of an assistance center, both by telephone and by other means that may include e-mail consultations, and instant online messaging.
Collection, Current Account and Recovery
The concept of a current tax account, where the whole financial tax information from a taxpayer is centralized and concentrated, has been a focal point in the technical assistance processes executed by CIAT. It is accompanied by the improvement of the collection and recovery processes.
Organizational develoment and governance
Assistance in restructuring tax administrations, improvement of their model of management and governance, including planning, control and monitoring mechanisms.
Control
Introduction of specialized audit techniques, control planning, case selection and management control. In this sense, the developments that have been made to correlate the tasks of auditing with the current account in terms of results, as well as mechanisms of workflows and process models, accompanying the results of the audit in subsequent processes, including the recursive, are particularly important.
Innovation management and quality assurance
Through accompanying a process of modernization, restructuring or change, developed within the tax administration, with or without external consulting, activities of monitoring take place to check the inclusion of best practices learned from similar developments in other tax administrations. In cases in which these processes are conducted with external support, CIAT would act in an advisory role, providing a second opinion that ensures compliance with the requirements and the use of good practices in the field of tax administration.
Information system and use of ICT
The specification of information systems and the design and construction of information systems has been an integral part of the CIAT technical assistance activities. Specific modules that serve a specific function, as well as comprehensive and integrated systems that serve most of the areas of action of the tax administration have been built and developed.
Customized courses
Each of our courses, virtual or face-to-face is adapted according to the needs of the tax administration requesting it, through the design of guides and training activities that may facilitate its development and knowledge acquisition.
Human Talent
We provide the Tax Administrations technical assistance related to the selection, induction, training, management, evaluation and severance programs, in order to set up competitive working teams that may allow for achieving the objectives and strategies of the administrations. In addition, we seek to stress the fact that human talent is the most important resource of the Tax Administrations.
Support for the creation, development and strengthening of the training centers
We serve as support in the implementation and strengthening of the Training Centers existing in the Tax Administrations, by assisting and orienting the process of their creation or improvement.
Program certification
At the request of our member countries, we undertake the certification of the training programs they carry out. This task is carried out through the review of the themes, methodology and contents of the programs, by suggesting adjustments, complements or modifications for improving their technical quality and in addition, we assist in the identification of tutors or expert professors of the different subjects.
CIAT has assisted several tax administrations as a facilitator in the internal processes to design the organization’s strategy, formulate strategic plans, in the definition of strategy maps and the identification of compliance indicators. The participation of CIAT as an external facilitator, but with a wide knowledge on tax administration and policies, has been important in these processes.
CIAT may assist tax administrations in the design and development of tax studies, particularly those related to economic and econometric studies and the development of models, for example, the tax expenditure measurement or estimation of the collection potential.
This is an area of development in the field of technical assistance and responds to the current trend of international taxation, in aspects such as transfer pricing, exchange of information and measures to prevent the erosion of tax bases.