IOTA Secretariat
Expand Your Skills with VITARA: The Updated VITARA Portfolio for 2025 is Now Available

IOTA is pleased to announce an update to the VITARA Curriculum. The refreshed courses for 2025, along with microlearning videos, the Overview and FAQ document, and the recently published Audit Program Reference Guide, are now available on the dedicated VITARA e-learning page of the IOTA web portal.
As part of the VITARA portfolio, you can now apply for the new VITARA modules on Information Technology and Data Management (ITD) and the Audit Program. Both modules are open for registration, with a deadline of April 1, 2025. To register for these online training courses, please visit the official training pages on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) website for VITARA-ITD and VITARA-AUD.
The VITARA-ITD module equips heads of tax administrations and their executive leadership teams with essential information technology and data management concepts and tools. The module opens by explaining how information technology (IT) can help achieve a tax administration's goals and the role of executives in managing and overseeing IT resources. The module highlights the evolution of IT from a back-office function to a strategic driver of reforms and modernisation. Among other concepts, it explores digital transformation and the automation of an integrated business process model. The module provides tools for integrating IT into reform planning and prioritizing IT investments and includes broad overviews of contemporary IT operations, governance arrangements, and management practices. Building from insights into IT, the module explains how to understand, manage, and use data to improve tax administration performance. The module closes with an overview of information security.
The VITARA-AUD module provides a solid understanding of audit as a key tool available to a tax administration to promote and enforce compliance. The module explains international good practices in designing and managing an effective audit program including the necessary legal powers, audit-related organization, and governance arrangements as well as the staff expertise and resources needed for audit as well as auditor performance evaluation. The module focuses on practical issues such as how audit cases are selected, the different types and scope of audits, and audit methods that are available to staff. It also discusses the concepts of audit integrity, audit quality assurance, and the Random Audit Program as well as electronic audit tools and how they can be used in conducting audits. The module introduces a potential annual operational performance dashboard that can be implemented to allow program monitoring throughout the fiscal year. Finally, the module highlights the key components of an audit process.
VITARA stands for Virtual Training to Advance Revenue Administration and is a joint initiative of four organisations, Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations (CIAT), Intra-European Organisation of Tax Administrations (IOTA), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It was launched in 2020 to develop a highly effective, globally accessible, on-demand, and free online curriculum on revenue administrative issues. The VITARA modules are introductory-level modules designed for busy professionals who wish to improve their skills in tax administration.