Regional workshop very well received

Tax administration officials from the Caribbean region came together October 3-6, 2016 in Georgetown Guyana for the regional workshop – A Practical Approach to Risk Assessment in the Caribbean Region.

The workshop was hosted by the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) and jointly sponsored by the Commonwealth Association of Tax Administrators (CATA), the Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations (CIAT), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the World Bank Group (WBG), with technical and organizational support from the Canada Revenue Agency and the financial support of the WBG’s SEMCAR Program and the Government of Canada.

Workshop participants included 23 officials from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Dominica, Guyana, St. Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago, as well as a representative from CARTAC.  Through a combination of presentations, case studies and interactive discussions, participants and presenters explored a variety of issues related to tax risk assessment – including information sources, risk assessment models, IT solutions, and key challenges associated with the SME sector.

The event was managed using the prototype Knowledge Sharing Platform (KSP), and participants expressed interest in continuing discussions on some issues raised during the workshop through use of the KSP’s Community of Practice feature.

Participants expressed a high level of satisfaction with the workshop, with over 91% giving it an overall rating of either 4 or 5 out of 5, and the same percentage reporting an increase in their knowledge of risk assessment from before the event to after.

This workshop is an excellent example of successful cooperation and coordination between tax administrations and international/regional organizations to strengthen tax administration capacity, which can hopefully be replicated in the future.