Income tax assistance project

PES covers the period 8/81-2/83 and is based on interviews with government officials and advisors, and on document review. Significant progress has been made toward improving the Department of Income Tax (DIT) operation systems for collections of revenue, and for administrative procedures (document entry and workflow). Less progress has been made in the area of income tax assessment, primarily because of the learning process involved in changing, as stipulated by the revised tax law (1982), from an agency-assessment to a self-assessment system. Other factors have contributed to the delay in project implementation: a one-year delay occurred in filling the position of tax compliance advisor, adversely affecting the audit/assessment function; and the DIT underwent a massive internal reorganization in which most of the auditors/assessors were dismissed and an emergency program of recruitment and training was needed. These issues have now been resolved. Most notable accomplishments to date include: (1) development of a fully operational automatic data processing (ADP) system, substantially improving data entry and taxpayer accounts processing; (2) initiation by the DIT of limited but precedent-setting enforcement action for noncompliance, increasing the efficiency of the collection process; and (3) completion of a comprehensive training needs study and the establishment of methods and priorities for future training. The initial training of the new assessors to replace those dismissed was an outstanding achievement by the DIT, which has now developed and institutionalized successful courses in accounting, tax law, and assessment. Preparation of an ADP programming course in conjunction with the University of Jordan is proceeding as scheduled. The revised tax law provides a legal basis for addressing most of the assessment inequities in the implementation of the 1964 tax law. An extension of the project for one year will shortly be requested, and is supported by this evaluation. Because of low expenditures to date, and a restructuring of the training component (reducing planned participant training), the proposed extension will not require additional funding.