Digitalization Of Tax Administration: A Review Of The Organization For Economic Co-Operation And Development (Oecd) Guidelines

Tax administrations worldwide are being digitally transformed at a rapid pace. The increased capabilities of modern information technology to extract, process, and manage data is leading tax administrators to adopt new approaches in order to make taxation more efficient, effective, and transparent. This paper critically evaluates Tax Administration 3.0: The Digital Transformation of Tax Administration, a set of guidelines created by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It reports on how leading countries have adopted each recommended building block in the OECD report, highlighting successes, challenges, and next steps on the road to digitalization for each country. The paper contains specific commentary related to Canada, which like the United States lags behind many other advanced economies in its implementation of the OECD recommendations. A detailed breakdown is performedpertaining to leading countries regarding the building blocks of Tax Administration 3.0, their journey towards its implementation, the challenges faced as well as the methods used to overcome them, and the next steps that will be taken towards further advancement. The OECD guidelines, although aspirational in nature, have been adopted and implemented by certain countries selectively, while others like Canada and the US lag. A key finding from this study is that no one country has yet been able to implement all the Tax Administration 3.0 guidelines.