The IOTA project on “Measuring Debt Management Performance ”, sponsored by the Belgian General Administration for Collection and Debt Recovery, was finalised with the publication of the project report and online overview of Key Performance Indicators. This report comes at a time when debt remains at a very high level. The total year-end tax debt in 2015 for the 29 IOTA member countries that provided this figure to the 2017 Tax Administration series stands at approximately euro 929,565,000,000. This means almost one trillion euro to be managed for recovery purposes!
A Project Team, composed of experienced tax collectors and participants of the “Potential Leader” trajectory, explored and analysed how debt collection and recovery departments face the rising levels of tax debt with the corresponding resource pressures and risks. The project started in April 2016 with an online survey where IOTA member administrations were invited to provide information on the methods and tools they use in order to measure the performance of their debt management. In order to get a full picture and to ensure a correct analysis of the answers received, a second and ‘personalised’ survey was sent out a few months later. This data collection phase ended in March 2017 with collecting the results of this second survey. In between both surveys, the members of the Project Team conducted four study visits to the tax administrations of Austria, Poland, Portugal and Sweden (both Swedish Tax Agency and Swedish Enforcement Authority). These study visits allowed to get a more in-depth understanding of concrete methods and tools for performance measurement. Furthermore, additional input to the Project Report was collected during a dedicated workshop for all IOTA Debt Management Area Group members which was organised in Brussels in April 2017, prior to a joint IOTA, OECD FTA and Fiscalis 2020 workshop on “Innovation in the Field of Collection and Recovery of Taxes and Fines”. The final draft of the project report was presented to the IOTA Principal Contact Persons during the 25th Forum of IOTA Principal Contact Persons in Antwerp in February 2018.
We hope that the IOTA membership can learn from the project report and online overview of Key Performance Indicators. Sharing of good practice is an essential element contributing to the improvement of the work being done by IOTA member administrations. Through this project report, IOTA provides access to a range of examples of such good practices. Finally, sponsoring the IOTA project provided an opportunity to have wider range of debt management officials of the Belgian General Administration for Collection and Debt Recovery being active in an international context.
IOTA members can access the complete version of the Report on Measuring Debt Management Performance in the secured IOTA website.