The 3rd Benchmarking Working Group meeting was successfully held last June 22 to 23 in Panama City at the headquarters of the CIAT Executive Secretariat.

The meeting counted on the valuable participation of Mr. Normand Théberge, Director General of the Canadian Revenue Agency; Mr. Sr. Subert Gilbert, Assistant Commissioner of the Inland Revenue Division of the Ministry of Finance of Trinidad and Tobago, and Mr. Ángel González, Head of the French Mission before CIAT. The CIAT Executive Secretariat was represented by the Executive Secretary, Mr. Márcio Verdi; the International Specialist, Mr. Socorro Velazquez, and the Technical Assistance Manager, Mr. Raúl Zambrano.

In this third meeting the efficacy of the first set of indicators that were originally defined by the Group was evaluated, and new features and improvements for the comparison system were identified; likewise, a new set of indicators that had been suggested by countries that were not members of the Group were defined. Finally, a strategy for the broad deployment of the system among the 38 CIAT member countries was designed. A first presentation of the efforts and achievements of the Group will take place in Paris on occasion of the CIAT Technical Conference in October.

The main objective of this initiative is to develop and provide online accessible tools to the member countries which can be used to self-assess their competencies and identify what best practices are being employed by other tax administrations which can be adapted to their system in an effort to improve performance.