ISP Working Paper Number 05-02

Choosing between Centralized and Decentralized Models of Tax Administration

Jorge Martinez-Vazquez and Andrey Timofeev, January 2005

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Abstract:

The international experience shows a variety of approaches to the organization and degree of decentralization in tax administration. It is quite common to observe, even in countries that are otherwise significantly decentralized as is the case in the Scandinavian Countries, a highly centralized organization of tax administration. Nevertheless, there are other countries, in small number, where tax administration is highly decentralized; in some cases, as in Germany, even central government taxes are administered by the decentralized subnational governments. The fundamental questions addressed in this paper are the following: what is the most appropriate approach to organizing the vertical structure of tax administration, and what are the determinant factors that may make an approach more or less optimal in any particular country.