Tax Administration and Technology: From Enhanced to No-Cooperation?

In recent years, technology has induced many reforms within tax administration and improved the relations between taxpayers and tax authorities. There is a growing consensus that increasing the relationship between those parties leads to increased levels of voluntary compliance, and that technology-driven reforms are the best way to implement that goal.

However, increasing the relations between the Parties does not always improve the trust relationship or voluntary compliance levels. Moreover, the continuous implementation of technology-driven reforms on tax systems that were not conceived to operate in a technological environment has led to several downfalls.

In the author’s view, this situation may be overcome by a paradigm shift which is focused on the long-term and on the optimisation of tax administration against the backdrop of an increasing digitalised economy. This would allow moving from the current “enhanced cooperation” model to the “no-cooperation” model which would be beneficial for both tax authorities and taxpayers.

In this paper, the author puts forward the principles that should guide policy-makers in the design of this new model and its main structural elements.

This paper was drafted in the framework of the research project "Digitalization of tax administrations in the EU" ( 612029-EPP-1-2019-1-ES-EPPJMO-PROJECT).