Designing Performance: The Semi-Autonomous Revenue Authority Model in Africa and Latin America
During the past decade, diverse developing countries have introduced radical reforms in their collection of taxes. In more than 15 countries, traditional tax departments have been granted the status of semiautonomous revenue authorities (ARAs), whi...
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, D.C.
2013
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2004/10/5215808/designing-performance-semi-autonomous-revenue-authority-model-africa-latin-america http://hdl.handle.net/10986/14224 |
| Summary: | During the past decade, diverse
developing countries have introduced radical reforms in
their collection of taxes. In more than 15 countries,
traditional tax departments have been granted the status of
semiautonomous revenue authorities (ARAs), which are
designed with a number of autonomy-enhancing features,
including self-financing mechanisms, boards of directors
with high-ranking public and private sector representatives,
and sui generis personnel systems. The author addresses gaps
in the public management and tax administration literatures
by closely examining ARA reforms in Kenya, Mexico, Peru,
South Africa, Uganda, and Venezuela from their inception to
the early 2000s. Using the comparative case study method, he
tackles three questions. First, what has motivated the wave
of ARA reforms over the past decade? The author argues that
from a public management perspective, reformers intended to
use autonomy to enhance bureaucratic performance in
low-capacity public sectors. Second, is there a connection
between autonomy and performance? Focusing on revenue
collection, compliance management, taxpayer services, human
resource management, and administrative costs, the author
suggests that autonomy is associated with higher levels of
performance. He also makes the case that higher levels of
autonomy are associated with higher levels of performance.
Third, if there is a connection between autonomy and
performance, which specific design features matter most and
why? In spite of the popularity of the ARA reform, there is
no consensus on best practice in organizational design. The
author offers hypotheses based on the cases about why
certain designs work better than others, and makes specific
recommendations for the next generation of ARA reforms. |
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