30th Edition of Tax Tribune
It is with a great deal of pleasure that I introduce our 30th issue of the Tax Tribune, the annual magazine of the Intra-European Organisation of Tax Administrations (IOTA), which refl ects on our 2013 Work Programme. IOTA events in 2013 attracted well over 850 participants from 45 member tax administrations. As in previous years, several IOTA technical events were attended and supported by highly qualifi ed speakers from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The annual programme covered a wide variety of topics which addressed the most important and urgent problems modern tax administrations are facing. In our magazine, we would like to refl ect this diversity of challenges by including articles from the widest fi eld of practical tax administration issues possible. The range goes from the role of administrations to stimulate voluntary compliance through actual practices of exchanging tax information, managing the challenges posed by e-services to fi ghting tax evasion and avoidance.In this issue, you can read articles which are based on presentations delivered at diff erent IOTA workshops. Some tax professionals felt it important as a direct consequence of their participation in an IOTA technical
event to share their thoughts with the readers based on their fi rst hand impressions and experiences. Articles such as “Improving Compliance by Education”, “Providing Assistance to Start Up Business” and “Engaging and Involving SME’s in Tax Administration Processes” all build on the experiences gained from the interaction with representatives of other tax administrations.
This year IOTA continues to focus on the practical aspects of tax administration operations through the delivery of its technical work programme, hoping to generate a great deal of interest and attract more and more participants from IOTA members. The Organisation itself also faces many challenges in a constantly changing environment and the IOTA management aims to support the evolving demands of the membership. The current development eff orts might sometimes result in a temporary fallback in delivery outcome, but the quality of our events are of utmost importance for us to facilitate the exchange of best practices between tax administrations regardless of any structural diff erences. Unlike previous editions of the Tax Tribune, the 30th issue will only be published digitally on the IOTA Website, as we have to adopt new communication channels and also strive for a “paperless” administration. Moreover, at a time of considerable resource constraints, efficiency and innovation is becoming more and more important also in this fi eld. The content, however, still remains similar to the previous paper versions. Another slight change is that we have reconsidered the frequency of the magazine. We thought it would be helpful for the reader to be informed about current practices of the tax administrations in the magazine in each quarter of the year. I would like to express my sincere thanks to all authors of articles and to you all for your active interest in IOTA. I hope that all of you will fi nd something of interest in this edition of Tax Tribune and I would like to
invite you to also participate in our events in the second half year of 2014.