Managing Income Tax Compliance through Self-Assessment

Andrew Okello

No 2014/041, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: Modern tax administrations seek to optimize tax collections while minimizing administration costs and taxpayer compliance costs. Experience shows that voluntary compliance is best achieved through a system of self-assessment. Many tax administrations have introduced self-assessment principles in the income tax law but the legal authority is not being consistently applied. They continue to rely heavily on “desk” auditing a majority of tax returns, while risk management practices remain largely underdeveloped and/or underutilized. There is also plenty of opportunity in many countries to enhance the design and delivery of client-focused taxpayer service programs, and better engage with the private sector and other stakeholders.

Keywords: WP; self-assessment system; taxpayer service; tax administration; service implementation plan; tax liability; taxpayer assessment; income tax; tax compliance; self-assessment; risk management; Sub-Saharan Africa; business taxpayer; taxpayer self-assessment practice; self-assessment practice; taxpayer certainty; taxpayer effort; tax revenue; self-assessment implementation; a number of country; income tax self-assessment system; Income tax systems; Tax administration core functions; Auditing; Taxpayer services; Middle East; East Asia; South Asia; Global (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38
Date: 2014-03-11
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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