Africa, Finnish Tax Administration's Technical Assistance to African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF)

Description What is done in the programme or project and why, what results are pursued, who benefits from the activities and who are involved in the implementation.

The work on global tax agenda, also from developing countries perspective, is getting increasing attention. One of the most effective forms of support identified is the provision of technical expertise from experienced tax inspectors to developing countries' tax administrations. Commissioned by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Finnish Tax Administration has launched technical assistance to the forum of African tax administrations, ATAF, in regional capacity and knowledge building. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs already supports ATAF with a 1 million euro core contribution for the period 2014-2016. Technical assistance (TA) provided by Finnish Tax Administration in 2015-2016 focused on applying new global tax rules and Base erosion and Profit Shifting work, in the area of transfer pricing. Within the framework of ATAF assistance to its member countries the experts of Finnish Tax Administration (FTA) visited Namibia. During the first phase of cooperation the baseline situation and risk assessment were carried out and tax administrations drafted a work plan that Namibia is committed to. Plan included the establishment of large taxpayers (LTO, Large Taxpayers Office), which was realized in 2015. Other results include training on transfer pricing and starting a systematic collection of data on large taxpayers.The Ministry of Finance of Namibia Inland Revenue Department (IRD) requested ATAF and MFA Finland to continue the cooperation. In the next phase TA will focus on developing LTO's capacity.The objective is to introduce a risk analysis and based on that mobilize tax audits on large companies. In addition to Namibian Inland Revenue office ATAF will benefit from the experience, the lessons learned of which become available to other ATAF member countries in similar situation. Indirectly the project benefits citizens of Namibia in the form of increased tax revenue. MFA has reserved 300,000 euros for the purpose to be used in 2016-2018. Core support to ATAf and complementary technical assistance is a cost effective way to strengthen taxation capacity in Africa and aligned with ATAF members' priorities. Finnish Tax Administrations expert assistance to ATAF is part of the Finnish Tax and Development action plan and it complements the Finnish support to OECD-UNDP joint initiative "Tax Inspectors Without Borders". The chosen cooperation modality, public institution assignment, is the most reasonable way to continue the cooperation.