Tax Incentives and Investment Reform Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Tax Policy Officials, Revenue Authority Managers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-T-035

Before you join: Participants should understand basic corporate income tax concepts, including taxable profit, depreciation, tax rates, withholding tax and tax returns.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Tax incentives can attract investment, but poorly designed regimes often produce fiscal leakage, unequal treatment, administrative delay and limited evidence that investment would not have occurred anyway. Finance ministries, revenue authorities and investment promotion agencies must balance investor expectations against revenue protection, legal certainty, international tax rules and public accountability. Private-sector advisers and investors also need to assess whether an incentive is available, durable and valuable after compliance costs and minimum-tax effects.

This course examines the full incentive policy cycle: diagnosing investment-climate constraints; selecting credits, allowances, exemptions, tax holidays and special-zone arrangements; estimating fiscal cost; and assessing additionality. Participants apply project appraisal, marginal and effective tax rate analysis, tax expenditure reporting, regulatory impact assessment and compliance risk management. The programme also addresses treaty provisions, OECD BEPS Action 5, the OECD GloBE Rules, domestic minimum top-up taxes, anti-abuse controls and substance requirements.

Instruction combines focused briefings with cases drawn from manufacturing, extractives, renewable energy, technology investment and special economic zones. Participants work through policy choices, investor project data, fiscal scenarios, administrative procedures and reform sequencing. Each participant leaves with a practical tax incentive reform pack containing appraisal, monitoring, risk and implementation templates that can be adapted to their institution or advisory work.

The course is suited to public officials responsible for tax policy, revenue administration, investment promotion, customs, economic reform and public financial management. It also serves tax advisers, corporate tax managers, development finance professionals and legal specialists who evaluate investment incentives or support reform programmes.

What you will be able to do

  • Assess investment incentive proposals using additionality, fiscal cost and policy-effectiveness criteria
  • Calculate project-level NPV, IRR, marginal effective tax rates and effective average tax rates
  • Design eligibility rules, sunset clauses, recapture provisions and administrative approval processes
  • Apply OECD BEPS Action 5 and GloBE Rules to incentive regime assessments
  • Interpret tax treaty, anti-abuse and substance requirements affecting investor incentive claims
  • Construct tax expenditure estimates, indicator frameworks and beneficiary reporting requirements
  • Evaluate compliance risks using risk matrices, audit criteria and clawback procedures
  • Prepare a sequenced tax incentive reform roadmap with governance and monitoring arrangements

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Produce defensible incentive appraisals using fiscal cost and additionality evidence
  • Assess whether minimum-tax rules reduce the value of proposed tax incentives
  • Write clearer policy recommendations with quantified trade-offs and implementation steps
  • Identify weak eligibility, monitoring and clawback provisions before fiscal losses arise
  • Build a portfolio of reusable tax policy and investment reform work products

For your organisation

  • Improve incentive design through transparent eligibility, sunset and recapture provisions
  • Reduce revenue leakage from ineffective, duplicated or abuse-prone tax concessions
  • Strengthen tax expenditure reporting for budget scrutiny and policy review
  • Align incentive regimes with treaty obligations, BEPS transparency and minimum-tax rules
  • Create accountable reform programmes with owners, milestones and measurable performance indicators

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can diagnose where tax incentives fit within wider investment-climate constraints.

  • Investment climate determinants: tax burden, administration, legal certainty and infrastructure
  • Distinguishing statutory incentives from effective tax rates and non-tax constraints
  • Investor decision stages and tax-sensitive project cash-flow assumptions
  • Mapping domestic and foreign investors by project, sector and mobility
  • Tax expenditure concepts, revenue foregone estimates and opportunity-cost comparisons
  • Government failures created by discretionary approvals, delays and inconsistent interpretations

Participants can select and structure tax incentives against explicit policy objectives.

  • Tax policy objectives expressed through measurable investment, employment and innovation outcomes
  • Selecting instruments: credits, allowances, exemptions, holidays, accelerated depreciation and reduced rates
  • Eligibility rules using qualifying expenditure, location, headcount and asset tests
  • Designing sunset clauses, carry-forward provisions and recapture mechanisms
  • Sector targeting risks, neutrality principles and horizontal incentive alternatives
  • Reading tax incentive legislation for definitions, exclusions and administrative discretion

Participants can quantify investor returns, fiscal costs and expected economic benefits.

  • Project appraisal using incremental cash flows, NPV, IRR and payback
  • Estimating fiscal cost through revenue foregone and outlay-equivalent measures
  • Marginal effective tax rate and effective average tax rate calculations
  • Cost-benefit analysis incorporating additionality, deadweight, displacement and substitution effects
  • Discount-rate selection, sensitivity tables and scenario analysis for incentive proposals
  • Comparing incentive packages against infrastructure, skills and regulatory reform spending

Participants can design administrable incentive processes with clear accountability and taxpayer safeguards.

  • Legislative, regulatory and administrative instruments within a coherent incentive framework
  • One-stop-shop design, service standards and published approval timelines
  • Risk-based taxpayer segmentation for registration, claims review and post-award monitoring
  • Digital application workflows, data fields and audit trails for approvals
  • Interagency governance between finance, revenue authority, investment promotion and customs
  • Appeal rights, rulings and taxpayer-charter protections supporting legal certainty

Participants can assess how international tax rules affect domestic incentive design and investor claims.

  • Tax treaty provisions affecting withholding taxes, permanent establishment and investment structures
  • OECD BEPS Action 5 transparency requirements for preferential tax regimes
  • Global minimum tax mechanics under OECD GloBE Rules
  • Qualified domestic minimum top-up tax implications for incentive design
  • Substance requirements, beneficial ownership tests and anti-abuse rules
  • Treaty shopping indicators and principal purpose test risk assessment

Participants can compare incentive approaches for priority sectors and geographic locations.

  • Manufacturing incentives: investment allowances, export zones and customs-duty relief
  • Extractives agreements, fiscal stability clauses and resource-rent taxation trade-offs
  • Renewable-energy credits, carbon pricing interactions and power-purchase agreement considerations
  • Technology incentives: research credits, patent boxes and qualifying-income definitions
  • Special economic zones: customs controls, domestic-sales rules and governance
  • SME incentives compared with targeted support for large mobile investments

Participants can build evidence systems for monitoring incentive beneficiaries and policy results.

  • Theory of change linking incentives to outputs, outcomes and impacts
  • Indicator sets covering jobs, capital expenditure, exports, productivity and tax paid
  • Baseline construction and counterfactual methods for additionality assessment
  • Administrative data matching across tax, customs, company registry and labour records
  • Beneficiary reporting templates, verification protocols and data-quality checks
  • Publishing tax expenditure reports with methodology, assumptions and policy objectives

Participants can plan tax incentive reforms using structured diagnosis, consultation and implementation methods.

  • Diagnostic sequencing using investor journey mapping and tax administration pain points
  • PESTLE analysis of political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental constraints
  • Stakeholder mapping for ministries, legislators, business associations and development partners
  • Regulatory impact assessment of proposed tax incentive amendments
  • Consultation plans that document comments, decisions and implementation commitments
  • Reform roadmaps with owners, milestones, dependencies and decision gates

Participants can identify, assess and control fiscal risks associated with incentive regimes.

  • Red flags for transfer pricing, profit shifting and circular investment structures
  • Anti-avoidance rules, controlled foreign company rules and interest limitation approaches
  • Fraud controls over qualifying expenditure, related-party invoices and asset existence
  • Compliance risk matrices ranking likelihood, fiscal exposure and control effectiveness
  • Audit selection criteria and post-incentive clawback procedures
  • Managing discretionary-power risks through published criteria and segregation of duties

Participants can prepare an evidence-based incentive reform recommendation and implementation plan.

  • Building an incentive reform case from diagnosis, options and fiscal evidence
  • Option appraisal matrix comparing effectiveness, cost, legality, administrability and equity
  • Drafting ministerial briefing notes with recommendations, trade-offs and implementation steps
  • Sequencing legal amendments, systems changes, guidance and staff training
  • Performance dashboard design for quarterly reform governance reviews
  • Individual application plan with 90-day actions, stakeholders and evidence needs

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Tax incentive policy design checklist
  2. Project-level fiscal cost and NPV model
  3. Tax expenditure reporting template
  4. Incentive beneficiary monitoring framework
  5. Compliance risk and clawback matrix
  6. Tax incentive reform roadmap

Who should attend

  • Tax Policy Officials — design and assess incentive regimes while protecting public revenue
  • Revenue Authority Managers — administer claims, monitor beneficiaries and control abuse risks
  • Investment Promotion Officials — align investor services with transparent, defensible tax incentives
  • Public Financial Management Specialists — quantify tax expenditures and assess fiscal trade-offs
  • Corporate Tax Managers — evaluate incentive eligibility, compliance obligations and minimum-tax effects
  • Tax and Legal Advisers — advise clients or governments on incentive structures and reform proposals

Skills and tools covered

Tax incentive appraisalFiscal cost estimationInvestment climate reformInternational tax complianceTax expenditure reportingReform roadmap design

Tools and standards

OECD BEPS Action 5, OECD GloBE Model Rules, Marginal Effective Tax Rate, Regulatory Impact Assessment

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short technical briefings followed by instructor-guided case work on investment projects, tax incentive regimes and reform proposals. Group exercises apply discounted cash-flow analysis, tax expenditure estimation, risk matrices and regulatory impact assessment to realistic public-sector and corporate scenarios. Simulations test approval, monitoring and clawback decisions under fiscal and investor constraints. Participants use structured templates throughout the programme and complete an individual application plan for a current or anticipated reform, policy review or incentive assessment.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should understand basic corporate income tax concepts, including taxable profit, depreciation, tax rates, withholding tax and tax returns. Familiarity with public finance, investment appraisal or tax administration is useful, gained through professional work or prior study. Participants should be able to read financial statements and follow a simple discounted cash-flow calculation. Prior knowledge of OECD BEPS, tax treaties, tax expenditure reporting, regulatory impact assessment or the GloBE Rules is not required. No specialist econometric, legal drafting or spreadsheet modelling experience is assumed.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants need a working grasp of basic corporate tax and financial concepts, such as taxable profit, depreciation and discounted cash flow. Experience with BEPS, tax treaties, public finance or investment promotion is useful but not required.

Bring a laptop for working with models, templates and case materials. If permitted by your employer, bring a current incentive policy, tax expenditure report, project proposal or reform issue you want to assess.

It is designed for tax policy, revenue administration, investment promotion, customs and public financial management professionals. Corporate tax managers, advisers, lawyers and development finance specialists will also find it directly relevant.

Corporate tax compliance courses focus on calculating liabilities, filing returns and applying tax law for a taxpayer. This course focuses on designing, costing, administering, monitoring and reforming tax incentives, while also considering investor decision-making.

Participants can use the appraisal model to assess a proposed incentive, review eligibility conditions or estimate tax expenditure. The monitoring, risk and reform templates support policy reviews, investor negotiations and administrative improvement projects.

Training runs from 08:30 to 16:30 each day, with about 6.5 contact hours daily. The programme moves from incentive design and economic appraisal to administration, international rules, monitoring, risk control and reform planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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