Collaboration Necessary in Competition for Tax Dollar – Keene

Director General of Tax Administration, Vinette Keene has emphasised that the intense competition for the tax dollar in the global economy, will require the collaborative effort of the managerial and technical teams of tax administration bodies to conquer this competition.
Mrs. Keene was delivering the main address on (Sept. 24), at the opening of the Commonwealth Association of Tax Administration (CATA) Commonwealth Management Development Programme (CMDP) 2007, which is being hosted at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston. She stressed that the complementary nature of the management and technical staff must not be overlooked, as it was through the collaborative effort of both groups, that tax administration organisations were able to achieve their objectives, with collection of revenues being the ultimate result. The Director General noted that perhaps the most important element of building both managerial and technical capacity, was heavy investment in training, and therefore, training has been placed high on the priorities of the administrative initiatives, aimed at maximizing efficiency and effectiveness for greater productivity. “I have no doubt that jurisdictions from which our other participants come, will share similar objectives, as administrations require more as society demands more,” she said.
“The principles of effective people management will be imparted through the course content.people management is what management and leadership is all about, the ability to manage and lead people, so that they will deliver the performance that the organization requires to reach its goals and objectives,” Mrs. Keene said.
“It is said that improving productivity in organizations must begin with changing the way we train and motivate our leaders, managers and employees to think and act, and so training such as this is imperative in the success of learning organizations,” she stated. Continuing, Mrs. Keene pointed out that the development of top quality team members was part of the strategy, therefore, by implementing the ideas and techniques learnt in this course, participants could ensure that their organisations achieve their goals and objectives. She said it was expected that at the end of the training initiative, “all participants will return to their various administrations and actively impart the techniques you have learnt to benefit your country.” “This programme will see the diversity of the Commonwealth manifest itself in the sharing of experiences, expressions of different views and approaches, as we build our expertise in the area of tax administration from a global perspective,” she added. The Director General noted that mastery of the management of audit and compliance administration to include the taxation of multi-nationals are some pertinent issues that would come to the fore, as “bridging of the fiscal gap is critical at this time.”
“A global consensus is emerging, that tax governance and capacity building must incorporate a more holistic approach that focuses on comprehensively integrating checks and balances, preventive measures and internal controls to manage the administering of taxes to maintain equity. Working together in this international spirit can only develop more effective and efficient systems, as we aim to achieve the single purpose of strengthening the managerial and technical capacity,” she said.
The CMDP is a six-week programme designed for senior tax officials from the Commonwealth and consists of two modules. The first module, which will take place over four weeks, will cover tax administration and will be led by facilitators from Australia’s taxation office. The main objective of this module is to develop the skills, confidence and willingness to implement current management and tax administration practices and techniques in the respective departments of the participants. Meanwhile, the second module will concentrate on the improvement of compliance enforcement using the New Zealand system as a model.
The course aims to, among other things: extend participants’ management and perspective skills; enable participants to review and revisit their management practices; develop participants’ confidence to enable them to apply new skills to the workplace; challenge participants current thinking and practices; examine trends in the Commonwealth tax administrations; share and examine different and best practices in certain areas of tax administration.
The CMDP 2007 participants are drawn from Jamaica, Ghana, Grenada, Malawi, Namibia, St. Lucia, Swaziland and Uganda.