Are We in Good Hands? Is Tax Administration in India Following Good International Practices?

The State of Public Finances – #TowardsAccountability with Dr Munawer Khwaja on Are We in Good Hands? Is Tax Administration in India Following Good International Practices?

Center for the Study of Finance and Economics (CSFE), IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute, New Delhi invite you to a special talk

The State of Public Finances – #TowardsAccountability

Details of the #WebPolicyTalk:
Date: April 22, 2021; Thursday
Time: 6 PM IST
Platform: Zoom and Facebook Live

Speaker:

Dr Munawer Khwaja
Fiscal Economist, Former Technical Advisor, Fiscal Affairs Department, International Monetary Fund

Fiscal economist with more than 30 years’ international experience in a wide range of tax policy and tax administration reforms in developed OECD countries, emerging economies and developing nations in over 75 countries around the globe including Greece, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Japan, India, Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Croatia and Ukraine

Started his fiscal career in 1974 with the Indian Revenue Service where his last position in 1996 was as Director of Tax Policy in the Ministry of Finance playing a key role in tax reforms initiatives as part of India’s economic reform program under then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh.
Worked as Technical Advisor in the Fiscal Affairs Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Main activities include conducting research on best practices in tax policy and tax administration and how tax administration performance affects business productivity.

Prior to this, worked in the World Bank headquarters as Lead Fiscal Specialist, providing conceptual leadership and managerial supervision for World Bank’s tax policy and revenue administration portfolio. Earlier, as Senior Manager at KPMG Consulting/BearingPoint Inc. managed the firm’s tax reform portfolio internationally.

Earlier, as Country Head of the USAID Afghanistan Economic Governance Program, provided intellectual leadership for the post-conflict reconstruction and economic governance including assessing key developmental challenges. Earlier, worked with the UN Mission in Kosovo as Director Tax Policy at the Central Fiscal Authority, providing leadership in designing tax policy and establishing from scratch the key elements of well-functioning tax and customs administrations.

As Senior Fellow of Harvard University’s resident advisory team in Ukraine (1996–2000), advised the Finance Minister, Parliamentary Budget Committee, and the State Tax Administration on a range of fiscal reform issues arising in a post-Soviet transition economy.

Hold a D.E.S.S [doctoral degree] in Fiscal Administration from the Université de Paris-Dauphine (Paris Sorbonne IX), a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard University, and LL.B. from Delhi University. Delivered lectures on development topics at Harvard, Oxford and Duke universities, as well as the European Commission and US Treasury. Published several books and articles on tax policy and tax administration reform issues.

Chair:

Prof Atul Sarma
Visiting Professor, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID), New Delhi; Former Member, Thirteenth Finance Commission

Discussants:

Mr Ashok Sinha IRS
Retired Vice Chairman of the Tax Settlement Commission

Prof Indira Iyer
Professor, National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), New Delhi, Former IRS and Ex-Director of Tax Policy Research Unit of the Ministry of Finance

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About the Talk – Are We in Good Hands? Is Tax Administration in India Following Good International Practices?

Literature shows that good tax administration has a positive effect on the economy through its effect on productivity of enterprises. Tax administrations around the world have moved from an adversarial relationship with the taxpayers to one of cooperative compliance. This is, to a large extent, possible because of Big Data technology where the tax administration already has enormous amount of data on taxpayers’ business transactions which effectively minimizes evasion.

The approximately one-hour talk will start by setting the context in light of the current macroeconomic situation in India. It will then discuss a few issues on tax policy. The rest of the discussion will be focused on the weaknesses in the institutional framework (including corruption, dispute resolution) and absence of an integrated revenue administration. Finally, some recent innovations like the faceless assessment will be discussed.

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Are We in Good Hands? Is Tax Administration in India Following Good International Practices?

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