This paper describes and analyzes the experiences of several developing countries that have adopted the growing trend toward establishing semi-autonomous revenue authorities (SARAs) to administer tax collections. By removing the basic tax administration functions from the traditional line departments in the ministry of finance and granting the SARA a greater degree of autonomy to administer its own internal systems, the expectation has been that real revenue collections will be enhanced, tax-related corruption and evasion will be reduced, and taxpayer services will be improved. After carrying out an in-depth analysis of five SARA cases and taking into account the results of studies done by others, this paper concludes that SARAs have neither lived up to expectations nor can they be categorized as having failed. Tax administration efficiencies have risen and receded, and SARAs have not proven to be quick-fix panaceas. They do provide a platform from which tax administration efficiencies can be generated, but their mere establishment offers no guarantee of success.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by Development Alternatives, Inc., Fiscal Reform in Support of Trade Liberalization Project. in its series Working Papers with number
fr1002.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: