USAID/Fiscal Reform Project will host its third annual workshop on March 6-7, 2006 in Washington DC. The workshop will focus on both recent IT developments and challenges for revenue administrations in Developing and Transition Economies (DTEs) in the years ahead. The first day will review developments over the past decade – the generic systems, their costs and the efficiency gains for revenue administrations. Looking at the recent leading edge experience of the developed economies in revenue management, the second day will then examine how these advances in technology can aid revenue administrations around the world for the remainder of the decade and beyond. The workshop will conclude with a panel discussion on the potential role of IT in revenue administration. Prominent presenters will be drawn from revenue administrations in both developed economies and DTEs, academia and the IT industry. A draft agenda is below; presenter's bios and readings will be added in the near future. To facilitate USAID staff attendance, this annual workshop is being held back-to-back with the GSU/USAID Fiscal Policy Reform workshop in Atlanta (February 27-March 3, 2006).

For workshop highlights, click here.

USAID/Fiscal Reform Project will host a full-day workshop at USAID on December 13th presenting the results of some of its recent research activities. The day will kick off with Richard Bird presenting his landmark work on "Rethinking the VAT," examining the entire range of issues associated with the value added tax and challenging some of the conventional wisdom. Professor Bird will be followed by Drs. Jorge Martinez-Vazquez and Jamie Boex of Georgia State University, who will present policy highlights from their paper on "Fiscal Decentralization and Poverty." In the afternoon, Graham Harrison, Deputy Division Chief of the IMF-FAD, will present an important new piece of work by the IMF on "VAT Refunds." The workshop will then switch focus to IT-related issues in revenue management, with Richard Ainsworth of Boston University talking about the "Digital VAT," examining recent advances in technology and how these can aid revenue administrations around the world followed by a panel discussion on the potential role of IT in revenue administration.

The outreach will be held at the Ronald Reagan Building in the USAID Library conference room (mezzanine level). To register, CLICK HERE or call David Oniani at 202 530 7691. In view of the limited space, your participation will be confirmed. Registration will begin at 8.30am and directions to the workshop are below.

Profs. Bird and Gendron's paper is now available in the project research library.

Pension Reform in Eastern Europe and Eurasia

USAID Workshop for Practitioners in Tax and Pensions Reform

In June 2005, USAID and DAI hosted an extremely successful three-day event at the World Bank covering exclusively fiscal reform topics. The first two days were devoted to critical challenges of tax reform, and the third day to pensions reform with a view to both presenting cutting edge issues on tax and pension reform to USAID staff and Government officials, as well as to understanding what has been learned from USAID experience in these fields. A "murderer's row" of guest speakers from academia and international organizations included such luminaries as Richard Bird, Roy Bahl, Richard Ainsworth, Carlos Silvani, David Lindeman, Estelle James, Richard Hinz and many others. The agenda, presenter's bios and readings remain accessible on the workshop's website CLICK HERE.

Fiscal Reform Project Seminar: "Rethinking the VAT"

The Project held an event on May 4th at the Ronald Reagan Building featuring Richard Bird and Pierre-Pascal Gendron. They presented their research on the value-added tax, including debunking some common myths and examining the performance of the VAT (as measured by several different metrics) over the past decade in several geographic locations. Following the VAT presentation, Richard Ainsworth of Boston University gave a short presentation on information technology and how it has affected implementation of the VAT. Participants from the IMF, the IADB, the World Bank, and USAID were in attendance and supportive of the research undertaken by the project. The papers presented will be available at http://www.fiscalreform.net/research/research.htm.

India Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations Roundtable

In Jaipur, India, Sandra Hadler of DAI and Jorge Martinez, Roy Bahl, and Mark Rider of GSU attended a roundtable to discuss the -FINAL version of a draft policy options paper discussing India's tax regime and intergovernmental fiscal relations, in light of international best practices. Attended by Indian government officials, discussions on the draft provided important insights into the itricacies of intergovernmental fiscal issues for the government. The finalized options paper WAS presented to USAID in May 2005. For more information about DAI's work in India, contact Brandon Lundberg at brandon_lundberg@dai.com.

Fiscal Reform Project Seminar

The Fiscal Reform Project hosted a seminar on December 13th to discuss and debate two of the project’s recently published research studies: (1) A paper on using benchmarks to assess and compare the performance of tax systems, by Mark Gallagher; and (2) A study on international experience with the semi-autonomous revenue authority (SARA) model, by Arthur Mann. Participants from the IMF, the IADB, IRS, USAID and others contributed to a lively exchange of the issues raised by Drs. Gallagher and Mann. To view and download the studies, go to the project's Research page. For more information about this event, contact Brandon Lundberg at brandon_lundberg@dai.com.

Fiscal Reform Project "brown bag" at USAID

The Fiscal Reform Team held a "brown bag" on November 23rd at USAID's Washington, DC headquarters to present on field activities that the project is implementing in Guatemala, Angola and India. In Guatemala, the project is assisting Government efforts to evaluate fiscal performance and set new fiscal policy priorities. In Angola, the project is helping the Ministry of Finance with the organizational design of a new fiscal programming unit and with the recruitment and training of staff for the new unit. In India, the project is working with the Ministry of Finance to identify and evaluate different approaches to managing intergovernmental fiscal relations, controlling debt, and reining in fiscal crises. Brown bag participants included USAID officers and representatives from among the SEGIR Macro IQC holders. For more information about the brown bag, contact Brandon Lundberg at brandon_lundberg@dai.com. To read more about our field activities, go to the project's Field Requests page.

Guatemala City Meetings

On October 6th, The Fiscal Reform Project, working with USAID/Guatemala and the Guatemalan Ministry of Finance, hosted a roundtable with Government officials to discuss options for improving government spending to raise competitiveness, increase economic growth, and reduce poverty in Guatemala. The next day, the Project team participated in a session with the Superintendency for Tax Administration, in which they discussed and debated plans for improving the tax system to better fund the rising demand for critical public services and economic infrastructure. For more information about the Guatemala assistance, contact Mark Gallagher at Mark_Gallagher@dai.com.