TaxDev and Ghana’s Ministry of Finance organise four-day workshop with Ethiopian tax policymakers and administrators

Researchers from the DfID-funded Centre for Tax Analysis in Developing Countries (TaxDev) at the IFS have completed their most recent trip to Ghana’s Ministry of Finance as part of our collaborative research and capacity development programme. During this visit (7^th to 11^th August), as well as continuing work on costing proposed tax policies in Ghana, TaxDev researchers and staff at the Tax Policy Unit (TPU) of the Ghanaian Ministry of Finance (MoF) co-organised four days of workshops and meetings with a delegation of Ethiopian tax policymakers and administrators. These were attended by eight key officials from both the Ethiopian Revenue and Customs Authority (ERCA) and the recently established Tax Policy Directorate (TPD) of the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance and Economic Cooperation (MOFEC), as well as officials from Ghana’s MoF and Revenue Authority (GRA).

The first two days consisted of joint workshops on policy costing and analysis. David Phillips (Associate Director, IFS) and Ross Warwick (Research Economist, IFS) outlined an approach to policy costing and in a series of presentations, group discussions and exercises applied these to example VAT and corporate income tax policy reforms. The final two days provided an opportunity for peer-to-peer discussions between the Ethiopian and Ghanaian teams on a variety of issues including tax policy and tax policy analysis, management and capacity building, and cooperation between ministries and revenue authorities.

The workshops and meetings were successful in facilitating frank and open conversations about the relative merits of the Ethiopian and Ghanaian tax systems and institutions, and fostering cross-country learning and collaboration.

Researchers from the Centre for Tax Analysis in Developing Countries (TaxDev) at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and partners from the Tax Policy Directorate (TPD) of the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance and Economic Cooperation (MOFEC), the Ethiopian Revenue and Customs Authority (ERCA), and the Tax Policy Unit (TPU) of the Ghanaian Ministry of Finance.