Tax Policy and Administration Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Tax Policy Analysts, 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-040

Before you join: Participants should understand basic public finance concepts, including government revenue, expenditure and fiscal deficits.

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 policy determines how governments raise revenue, redistribute income, influence investment and fund public services. Tax administration determines whether those policy choices can be implemented fairly, efficiently and at acceptable compliance cost. Weak alignment between policy design, legislation, taxpayer services, registration, filing, audit and dispute resolution can create revenue gaps, taxpayer burden, administrative backlogs and opportunities for avoidance or corruption.

This course examines the full tax policy and administration cycle. Participants assess tax policy objectives, evaluate tax bases and rates, compare direct and indirect tax instruments, and identify the distributional and behavioural effects of reforms. They examine the administrative systems needed to support registration, return filing, payment collection, risk management, audit, debt collection, objections and appeals. The course also addresses VAT design, international tax coordination, digital administration, tax expenditure analysis and performance measurement.

Teaching combines focused briefings with public-finance cases, tax administration scenarios, policy appraisal work and facilitated group analysis. Participants use practical tools including tax policy scorecards, taxpayer-segmentation models, compliance-risk matrices and reform implementation plans. They leave with a structured set of reusable templates for assessing a proposed tax measure, diagnosing administrative weaknesses and planning a sequenced tax reform programme.

The course is suited to professionals working in ministries of finance, revenue authorities, central banks, public financial management units, development institutions and corporate tax functions that engage with tax policy or regulatory change.

What you will be able to do

  • Assess tax policy proposals against revenue, equity, efficiency and administrability criteria
  • Design tax bases, rates, thresholds and exemptions for stated policy objectives
  • Calculate and interpret tax expenditure estimates and revenue-foregone measures
  • Apply taxpayer segmentation and compliance-risk management to administrative priorities
  • Develop a VAT administration model covering registration, filing, refunds and audit
  • Evaluate international tax risks using OECD BEPS and transfer-pricing principles
  • Construct performance indicators for tax administration service, compliance and collection
  • Prepare a sequenced tax policy and administration reform implementation plan

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Produce defensible tax policy appraisal notes for senior decision-makers
  • Interpret tax reform effects on revenue, taxpayers and administrative workload
  • Apply risk-based methods to audit, debt and compliance priorities
  • Assess digital tax administration proposals against operational requirements
  • Build a practical tax reform implementation plan for a current role

For your organisation

  • Better alignment between tax legislation and administrative delivery capacity
  • More disciplined assessment of exemptions, incentives and tax expenditures
  • Improved allocation of compliance resources toward higher revenue risks
  • Clearer performance reporting for taxpayer service and revenue collection
  • More credible sequencing of tax policy and administration reforms

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can assess tax measures against explicit fiscal, economic and administrative criteria.

  • Revenue adequacy, equity, efficiency and simplicity as tax design criteria
  • Benefit principle and ability-to-pay approaches to tax burden allocation
  • Horizontal and vertical equity tested through taxpayer distribution profiles
  • Tax incidence analysis for workers, consumers, shareholders and landowners
  • Behavioural responses, elasticity and avoidance risks in tax design
  • Administrative feasibility assessed before adopting rates, thresholds and exemptions

Participants can structure tax bases and estimate revenue implications of policy changes.

  • Defining taxable persons, transactions, income and property tax bases
  • Rate structures: proportional, progressive, regressive and tiered schedules
  • Thresholds, deductions and credits modelled against distributional objectives
  • Static revenue estimation using tax base, rate and collection assumptions
  • Behavioural revenue forecasting using elasticity and compliance response adjustments
  • Sensitivity analysis for economic growth, inflation and taxpayer participation

Participants can evaluate income, corporate and property tax measures and associated tax expenditures.

  • Personal income tax schedules, allowances and withholding arrangements
  • Corporate income tax bases, loss relief and depreciation rules
  • Property taxation using cadastral values, rates and valuation cycles
  • Tax incentives assessed through additionality, cost and governance criteria
  • Tax expenditure statements prepared using revenue-foregone estimation methods
  • Sunset clauses and periodic reviews for preferential tax treatment

Participants can design core controls for indirect taxes and identify common compliance failures.

  • VAT destination principle, credit-invoice method and registration thresholds
  • Output tax, input tax and refund controls within VAT systems
  • Invoice matching and third-party data for VAT compliance checks
  • Excise tax design for alcohol, tobacco, fuel and sugary products
  • Specific and ad valorem excise rates compared systematically
  • Customs valuation, tariff classification and origin rules affecting revenue

Participants can specify taxpayer lifecycle controls from registration through payment and filing.

  • Unique taxpayer identification numbers linked to authoritative data sources
  • Registration validation using identity, business ownership and address checks
  • Taxpayer segmentation by size, behaviour, sector and compliance profile
  • Service channels designed for self-service, assisted service and complex cases
  • Pre-filled returns and third-party reporting to reduce filing errors
  • Filing calendars, payment channels and reminder protocols supporting compliance

Participants can apply a risk-based approach to compliance treatment, audit and debt collection.

  • Compliance Risk Management cycle: identify, assess, treat and monitor
  • Risk registers scored by likelihood, consequence and revenue exposure
  • Behavioural insights applied to taxpayer communications and filing interventions
  • Audit case selection using risk rules, data matching and random samples
  • Debt ageing analysis, payment arrangements and enforced collection actions
  • Audit quality assurance through case reviews and technical supervision

Participants can map fair dispute processes and integrity controls for tax administration.

  • Tax legislation hierarchy: statutes, regulations, rulings and administrative guidance
  • Objection and appeal procedures protecting taxpayer rights and revenue
  • Alternative dispute resolution for factual and valuation disagreements
  • Taxpayer charter provisions for confidentiality, certainty and fair treatment
  • Segregation of duties across assessment, payment, audit and refunds
  • Integrity risk assessments covering fraud, collusion and discretionary decisions

Participants can identify cross-border tax risks and select appropriate cooperation mechanisms.

  • Residence and source rules allocating cross-border taxing rights
  • Double tax treaties using OECD Model Tax Convention concepts
  • Transfer pricing arm's-length principle and comparable uncontrolled price method
  • BEPS Actions addressing profit shifting, treaty abuse and harmful practices
  • Country-by-country reporting used for multinational enterprise risk assessment
  • Exchange of information mechanisms supporting offshore compliance investigations

Participants can assess digital administration initiatives and measure operational performance.

  • Digital identity, e-filing and e-payment architecture for tax administration
  • E-invoicing models: clearance, decentralised exchange and post-audit reporting
  • Data governance covering quality, access, retention and privacy controls
  • Analytics models for anomaly detection, risk scoring and case prioritisation
  • TADAT dimensions used to diagnose tax administration performance
  • Balanced indicators for registration, filing, payment, audit and debt

Participants can prepare a sequenced implementation plan for a tax policy or administration reform.

  • Problem statements linked to evidence, fiscal objectives and taxpayer impacts
  • Stakeholder mapping for legislators, taxpayers, intermediaries and development partners
  • Regulatory impact assessment comparing policy options and implementation costs
  • Reform roadmaps sequenced by legal, process, technology and capability dependencies
  • Change management plans covering communication, training and service transition
  • Implementation dashboards tracking milestones, risks, owners and decision gates

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

What you take back to work

  1. Tax policy appraisal scorecard
  2. Tax revenue forecasting model
  3. Tax expenditure review template
  4. Taxpayer segmentation matrix
  5. Compliance risk register
  6. Tax reform implementation roadmap

Who should attend

  • Tax Policy Analysts — assess proposed taxes, exemptions and reform options
  • Revenue Authority Managers — improve compliance, service and collection operations
  • Ministry of Finance Officials — connect fiscal strategy with workable tax measures
  • Tax Auditors and Investigators — apply risk-based compliance approaches
  • Public Financial Management Specialists — assess domestic revenue reform programmes
  • Corporate Tax Managers — interpret policy changes affecting business obligations

Skills and tools covered

Tax policy appraisalRevenue forecastingVAT administrationCompliance risk managementInternational tax analysisTax reform planning

Tools and standards

Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool (TADAT), IMF Revenue Administration Gap Analysis Program (RA-GAP), OECD BEPS Inclusive Framework, OECD International VAT/GST Guidelines

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to establish tax concepts, followed by case analysis drawn from revenue authorities, finance ministries and regulated businesses. Participants work in groups on tax design choices, taxpayer-segmentation decisions, VAT control issues and reform sequencing. Facilitated simulations test trade-offs between revenue yield, equity, compliance cost and administrative feasibility. Individual application planning connects course methods to a live policy proposal, administrative challenge or reform programme from the participant's workplace.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should understand basic public finance concepts, including government revenue, expenditure and fiscal deficits. Familiarity with common taxes such as income tax, VAT, customs duties or excise tax is helpful, whether gained through government, consulting, accounting, audit or corporate tax work. Participants should be comfortable interpreting simple financial and tax data. Prior experience of tax policy design, revenue administration, econometrics, tax-law drafting or specialist international tax work is not required. The course explains the relevant concepts before applying them to administrative and policy decisions.

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 basic familiarity with public finance and common taxes such as income tax or VAT. Specialist knowledge of tax-law drafting, econometrics, transfer pricing or revenue authority systems is not required.

Bring a laptop if available and a current tax policy, administrative problem or reform proposal from your work. Participants may use public documents or anonymised data; confidential taxpayer information should not be shared.

It is designed for tax policy analysts, revenue authority managers, auditors, finance ministry staff, public financial management specialists and corporate tax managers. It is most useful for professionals who influence tax design, compliance operations or responses to tax reform.

Tax technical courses focus on applying rules to transactions, returns or financial statements. This course focuses on the policy choices behind taxes and the administrative systems needed to collect them fairly and effectively.

Participants can use the appraisal scorecard to assess a proposed tax measure, the risk register to prioritise compliance problems and the roadmap to structure a reform initiative. The methods apply to both national tax systems and large organisational tax functions.

The programme contains ten teaching modules of about three contact hours, delivered across five 08:30-16:30 training days. Time is divided between instructor input, case analysis, group work, simulations and individual application 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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