On 23-26 October 2017, CIAT hosted the annual meeting of the Technical Working Group (TWG) on the International Survey on Revenue Administration (ISORA) in Panama City. The TWG meeting was attended by representatives of the four partnering organisations CIAT, IMF, IOTA, and OECD. IOTA was represented by Wolfgang Büttner, Technical Taxation Expert.
ISORA is a joint web-based survey developed in cooperation between the four partnering organisations, hosted on the Revenue Administration Fiscal Information Tool (RA-FIT) Data Collection Platform developed by the IMF. The purpose of ISORA is to have one single international survey of tax administrations. This eases the burden of data reporting required by individual countries, grants participating tax administrations access to a large set of both quantitative and qualitative tax administration data, and facilitates cross-country comparisons and benchmarking. At the meeting, the TWG reviewed the draft survey forms (questionnaires) for the next ISORA survey that will be launched in May 2018 and will cover the years 2016 and 2017. All necessary IT changes will be implemented by the IMF by early 2018 with the online testing of the new forms taking place subsequently. As a result of the changes introduced to the ISORA 2018 forms, the TWG also reviewed the ISORA survey guide that aims to support administrations completing the survey.
ISORA training activities were also discussed at the TWG meeting in order to coordinate them and ensure that all countries have an opportunity to participate in a training event. IOTA plans the following ISORA training activities in 2018:
‒ a webinar on the use of the IOTA Tax Administration Information Platform (TIP) in January or February 2018; and
‒ two 2-day joint IOTA/OECD workshops in the week 9-13 April 2018 in Budapest, covering the use of the TIP portal and ISORA 2018 data input.
It was agreed that TWG members will continue to liaise regarding training plans and the structure of training sessions to maximize benefit to participating countries. The TWG members also reviewed the secure online data portal provided by the IMF and discussed technical access options for registered users.