The Crown Agents Tax team, through the Ugandan Revenue Authority (URA), were approached to provide technical advice, a key note speaker and facilitation expertise at an African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) technical conference in January 2011. The URA organised and hosted the conference as part of a programme of technical events. Julian Adey represented the Tax team.
Who are ATAF?
ATAF, established in 2009, aims to become a platform to allow African tax administrators to articulate African tax priorities, anchor good practices and build capacity in African tax policy and administration through peer learning and knowledge development. The work and priorities of ATAF are driven and managed by African countries, with the support of donor agencies, tax administrations and international organisations. These include OECD, IMF, AfDB, DFID and GIZ.
The objectives of ATAF are to achieve, across the whole of Africa, the:
- Promotion of economic development, good governance and accountability;
- Domestic resource mobilisation;
- Culture of professionalism and mutual support;
- Mutual cooperation and increase the level of voluntary tax compliance;
- Combating tax evasion and avoidance;
- Implementation of African tax strategies; and
- Capacity development aimed at strengthening tax administrations.
Widening our involvement with African tax administrators
Crown Agents have been involved with VAT Administrators of Africa (VADA) since its inception thirteen years ago. We attended the 13th VADA Conference in Nigeria in November 2010 and assisted with technical advice and facilitation expertise. We are also assisting in the development of their Strategic Plan at the moment.
ATAF represents a much broader forum than VADA and covers all aspects of tax policy and administration, rather than just Value Added Tax (VAT) covered by VADA. The conference in January represented our first opportunity to work with ATAF, and gave us to chance to demonstrate how our knowledge, experience and track record could assist ATAF and its members towards their common and individual goals. Nine African tax authorities were represented at the conference.
Feedback received from the organisers showed a high level of enthusiasm for the event and that our speaker, a Specialist Investigations Officer from HM Revenue and Customs, was one of the most highly rated presenters at the event. Other international quest speakers included the OECD, IMF, IRS and a FBI investigator.
Future Crown Agent involvement
ATAF and its members have a series of events organised over the next twelve months and will have many diverse challenges facing them in the future. We hope to build on the relationships developed with ATAF, its members and the URA as a result of this successful conference and offer further technical assistance.