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The 5th Project Group meeting for the TaxComp^eu Development

The 5th PG Meeting for the development of the TaxComp^eu (EU Tax Competency Framework) took place on Wednesday 10 and Tuesday 11 of July 2019 in Vienna.

The main areas of interest, were reviewing, verifying and further elaborating on the work performed on the role descriptions testing assignments.

The goals of the meeting were to test and finalise the following:

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• Functional Domains and scopes
• Competency Dictionaries
• Competency Profiles
• Role descriptions
• The Role Mapping Matrix

Prior to the workshop, the PG was assigned the exercise of testing the role descriptions that were developed through the work carried on the PG meetings. The task was to assess, along with employees holding equivalent positions nationally, the role descriptions’ content in terms of relevance to the actual work the jobholder performs and to validate the correctness of the role’s scope and task descriptions.

The PG Workshop continued presenting the accomplishments of all previous meetings:

• Tax core values
• Tax functional domains
• Tax role mapping matrix
• Scopes of tax functional domains
• Operational competency dictionary
• Professional competency dictionary
• Management competency dictionary
• Role descriptions
• Competency profiles

However valuable the support of the PG in validating the scope of the tax core functional domains, the operational competency dictionary and the operational competency profiles, there were still some points that needed to be clarified in the 5th PG meeting.

The participants were asked to validate a number of still pending country comments on relevant framework content. After final validations, the documents were finalised, as was the comprehensive list of Professional, Operational and management Competencies

Next subject of groupwork was the finalisation of competency profiles for all Tax roles included in the framework. The participants were asked to work together in the competency profiles’ last validations., answering the following questions:

• Is the profile complete? Is there any competency missing?
• Is it too extensive? Should we exclude some competencies?
• Is the proficiency level proposed sound?

The competency profiles were successfully finalised.

As a final point, the Mission Statement, defined in the 1st PG meeting, was reviewed:

“We are committed to working together with the purpose of building a reliable, relevant, flexible and easy-to-nationalise Competency Framework (CFW) for taxation, that will enhance HR capacity and secure high-end tax administration governance.”

The group was discussed on whether the goal of the mission statement had been accomplished and reached consensus in their belief that the work of the PG during the 5 workshops and intermediary assignments was of very high quality, both in terms of group process and output. Feelings of enthusiasm and anticipation for the next phases of this project was shared among participants.

The workshop ended with information on the next steps:

• The next phase of the development of the TaxComp^eu involves the roll out of the project with key communication messages and an infographic with vital information about the project (what is it, the benefits, etc.). Localisation of the complete TaxComp^eu Toolbox in all EU languages has already commenced. Upon completion, the material will be available in all EU languages on the official EU website EUROPA.
• Based on the TaxComp^eu, a competency assessment e-tool (TaxCAT) is currently being developed and will be launched shortly. For use by national administrations, the tool provides a simple, user-friendly way to assess institutional capacity in all TaxComp^eu competency areas according to national needs.
• The next phase of the development of the TaxComp^eu involves the creation of the TaxComp^eu Training Curriculum. Once developed, the TaxComp^eu Training Curriculum is a tool that will provide direct, to-the-point, tax-specific input for use by national training departments. It will comprise a detailed library of training topics and outcomes per each TaxComp^eu competency area.
• Following the completion of the TaxComp^eu, implementation support initiatives run by the EU will be launched to support Member States in their efforts to align their national HR structures to the proposed TaxComp^eu, thus making full use of the benefits the EU framework has to offer. Initiatives will include, among others, the issuance of a step-by-step guide to TaxComp^eu implementation, organisation of TaxComp^eu implementation CLEP events, Country visits, etc. To pave the way for successful implementation and create well-deserved anticipation of the framework, an extended library of TaxComp^eu communication messages has been developed. These target different audiences, namely leadership, HR departments and executives, Tax Administration employees, and other general audiences.

We would like to thank all the participants for their enthusiasm, positive spirit, sense of ownership and accountability they brought into the PG workshops. It was great to work and learn together. Thank you for your gracious engagement and professionalism!

We would like to give special thanks to the Austrian representative for the excellent organisation and hosting of the 5th PG workshop, and for making all of us feel welcome in Vienna.

The 4th Project Group meeting for the TaxComp^eu Development

The 4th PG Meeting for the development of the EU Tax Competency Framework took place on Tuesday 07 and Wednesday 08 of May 2019 in Rome.

The main areas of interest that have been covered during the 2 days, were reviewing, verifying and further elaborating on the work performed at home as assignments.

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The goals of the meeting were the following:

• Finalisation of Functional Domain scopes
• Finalisation of Operational Competency Dictionary
• Work in progress on Tax Professional and Management Competency Dictionaries
• Work in progress on role tasks per hierarchical level
• Work in progress on Operational Competency Profiles with Proficiency levels
• Work in progress on Professional & Management Competency Profiles with Proficiency levels

The PG’s task was to validate the additions and the comments from all the countries and to examine if the functional domains and all the dictionaries were well represented in the documents. Some changes in wording, in the order of the tasks and in titles were proposed. Also, some competencies were agreed to be excluded or merged from the competency dictionaries. The changes discussed will be implemented in the document and will be sent to the PG for a last review.

The detailed list of all the competencies as they have unanimously resulted from the 4th Tax PG meeting were:

The PG then split into two groups and started working on the operational competency profiles. The operational competency profiles with the proficiency levels as they have resulted from the 4th Tax PG Meeting will be sent to PG as an assignment for last review.

After the clarification of the above points, Italian representatives who have willingly accepted to run the first testing of role descriptions, they presented how they performed the testing as well as the outcomes.

A lot of group discussion cantered around the examination of the general PG comments in descriptions of the roles and the tasks. Some changes in wording, in the order of the tasks and in some comments were proposed. The PG’s task was to validate the additions and the comments, to examine if the competency profiles are comprehensive and to make suggestions in the proficiency levels.

Each professional and management competency profile was examined by the PG, who made decisions on the optimal competencies for every role. The goal of 4th meeting was to designate a slim cluster of absolutely necessary professional competencies for all roles within the administration. Then, the group worked together and made their suggestions regarding the equivalent proficiency levels designated appropriate for each role level. The changes discussed will be implemented in the document and will be sent to PG as an assignment for last review.

Participants were active contributors in group exercises and discussions as well as in the assignments that they must do at home. The PG will be asked to review the dictionaries and validate the competency profiles with the proficiency levels as a home assignment after meeting.

PG participants will be the first to run the first testing of role descriptions. The role descriptions for all the Functional Domains will be sent as well as a document with directions on how to perform the testing, giving both the steps and the perspective of the exercise and a template in which they could capture all comments.

The EU Tax Role Descriptions attempt to describe core roles, present in all or most administrations throughout the EU, and thus special attention has been paid to the level of detail included. As such, the testers, who are the job holder and the manager, should expect to find within the descriptions’ context the core tasks the role performs and not the whole spectrum of responsibilities the role might take on. The PG representatives will have to assess the role description content in terms of relevance to the actual work the job holder performs and validate the correctness of the role’s scope and task descriptions. For time efficiency purposes, each country representative will work an operational, an expert and a managerial role for only two functional domains:

• Tax Policy & Law: Austria, Ireland
• Taxpayer Services: Hungary, Italy, Spain
• Tax Collection: Greece, Poland, Spain
• Tax Audit: Greece, Italy, Poland, Lithuania
• Risk Management: Hungary, Slovenia, Lithuania
• Tax Fraud & Investigation: Slovenia, Austria, Ireland

Final testing of role descriptions will take place in Austria with experts and managers of the Austrian Tax Administration. The next meeting of the Fiscalis 2020 project group, supporting the development of an EU Tax Competency Framework, it will take place on July 10th and 11th 2019 in Vienna.

We would like to thank all the participants for their enthusiasm, positive spirit and their active participation helped make our time productive.

We would like to give special thanks to our colleagues from Italy for their kind hospitality and generosity by making all of us feel so welcome in Rome.

The 3rd Project Group meeting for the TaxComp^eu Development

The 3rd PG Meeting for the development of the EU Tax Competency Framework took place on Wednesday 06 and Thursday 07 of March 2019 in Dublin.

The main areas of interest that have been covered during the 2 days, were reviewing, verifying and further elaborating on the work performed at home as assignments, regarding the:

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• Final validations of the EU Tax Core Functional Domains and scopes
• Second draft of the Operational Competency Dictionary
• Second draft of Operational Competency Profiles

The PG’s task was to validate the additions and the comments from all the countries and to examine if all the operational competencies with their descriptions, the functional domains and the operational competency profiles were well represented in the documents. They also had to check if there is anything significant missing, and if there are parameters that should not be included within the scopes and the descriptions. Some changes in wording, in the order of the tasks and in titles were proposed. The changes discussed will be implemented in the document and sent to the PG for a last review.

After the clarification of the above points, the project group was asked to verify and review the preparatory draft work already performed on Tax Professional and Management Competencies built following the extensive research was performed for EU Customs CFW. The main topics of the 3rd PG Meeting were the following:

• First draft of the Tax Professional and Management Competencies
• Role tasks per hierarchical level (assignments)
• First draft Professional and Management Competency Profiles per role

The group suggested that they cluster all the competencies into three clusters presenting the personal, the social and methodological skills. The detailed list of Tax Professional Competencies as they have unanimously resulted from the 3rd Tax PG meeting were:

The list of Management Competencies is as below:

The participants will be asked to validate the professional and management competencies and their descriptions as well as the competency profiles as a home assignment after meeting.

Participants were encouraged to be active contributors in group exercises and discussions as well as in the assignments that they must do at home. Once the PG members were back at the office, they were asked to do the following assignments with a deadline on Wednesday April 17th, 2019:

1. Their task is to review Professional Competency Dictionary, descriptions of competencies as per the Customs Professional competency dictionary.
2. They asked to visit the Management Competency Dictionary and review descriptions of competencies.
3. They requested to visit the tasks per role Level and review Professional/Management Competency Profiles with Proficiency levels.

Moreover, participants were asked to review and approve the final draft of Tax Functional Domains and of Operational Competency Dictionary. All the decisions from the meeting were incorporated, thus this is for final review.

The next meeting of the Fiscalis 2020 project group, supporting the development of an EU Tax Competency Framework, it will take place on May 7th and 8th 2019 in Rome.

We would like to thank all the participants for their enthusiasm, positive spirit and their active participation helped make our time productive.

We would like to give special thanks to our colleague from Ireland for his kind hospitality and generosity by making all of us feel so welcome in Dublin.

The 2nd Project Group meeting for the TaxComp^eu Development

The 2nd PG Meeting for the development of the EU Tax Competency Framework took place on Tuesday 18 and Wednesday 19 of December 2018 in Brussels.

The main areas of interest that have been covered during the 1.5 days, were reviewing, verifying and further elaborating on the work performed at home as assignments, regarding the:

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• Final Draft of the EU Tax Core Values and their scopes
• Second draft of the EU Tax Core Functional Domains and their scopes
• Final draft of the EU Tax Career Paths
• Validation of relevance and flexibility of the Tax Role Mapping Matrix

After the clarification of the above points, the project group was asked to verify and review the preparatory draft work already performed on Tax Operational Competencies built following extensive research of the responses of representatives from 24 Member States and candidate countries to the EU Tax HR Survey, analysis of interview responses conducted with 18 Member States, online research carried out by members of the change management consultant team and tax-specific input from a tax expert. The goals of the 2nd PG Workshop were the following:

• Defining – Validating the detailed list of Tax Operational Competencies
• Creating a 1st draft Operational Competency Profiles per functional domain
• Validating the description of each Tax Operational Competency (classroom & assignment)

The detailed list of Tax Operational Competencies as they have unanimously resulted from the 2nd Tax PG meeting were:

1. Tax Business Understanding
2. Tax Legislation
3. Tax Policy & Governance
4. International Tax Affairs
5. Tax Collection
6. Taxpayer Compliance
7. Tax Enforcement
8. Tax Fraud and Investigation
9. Exchange of Information
10. Tax Audit
11. Risk Management and Analysis
12. Operational and Advanced Tax Relevant Data Analytics
13. Taxpayer Identification and Registration
14. Taxpayer Services Processing
15. Large Business Taxpayers (LBT) and High Net Wealth Individuals (HNWI) processing
16. Taxation of New Emerging Businesses and Digital Economy
17. Handling Tax Appeals

Each Operational Competency was examined by the PG, who proposed adjustments and improvements in their descriptions. An important outcome of the discussion was that there is a valid need to add three new Operational Competencies, which are “Taxpayers Identity Protection”, “Digital Economy Taxation” and “Settling Domestic Tax Appeals”. After that, they proposed the Operational Competencies that are suitable for each functional domain.

Participants were encouraged to be active contributors in group exercises and discussions as well as in the assignments that they must do at home. Once the PG members were back at the office, they were asked to do the following assignments with a deadline on Friday February 15th, 2019:

1. Their task is to visit the descriptive scopes of the six core and one supportive Functional Domain, as they have unanimously resulted, to share the seven scopes with relevant department heads and/or experts, and ask them to review the scope, the responsibilities and the order from most important (first) to least important.
2. They asked to visit the Tax Operational Competency dictionary to go through the content of each competency’s scope and description and revert with comments. Then, their task is to visit the Operational competency profiles of each functional domain and make decisions on the absolutely necessary / nice to have / or not needed competencies from the list.

The next meeting of the Fiscalis 2020 project group, supporting the development of an EU Tax Competency Framework, it will take place on March 2019 in Dublin. The next PG Workshop 6 & 7.3.19 goals are the following:

• Final validations of the EU Tax Core Functional Domains and scopes
• Second draft of the Operational Competency Dictionary
• Second draft of Operational Competency Profiles
• First draft of the Tax Professional and Management Competencies
• Role tasks per hierarchical level
• First draft Professional and Management Competency Profiles per role

We would like to thank all the participants for their enthusiasm, positive spirit and their active participation that contributed the most to the success of this second PG meeting.

The 1st Project Group meeting for the TaxComp^eu Development

The 1st PG Meeting for the development of the EU Tax Competency Framework took place on Wednesday 12 and Thursday 13 of September 2018 in Brussels.

The main areas of interest that have been covered during the 1.5 days, were reviewing, verifying and further elaborating on the preparatory draft work already performed on elementary parts of the future EU Tax CFW built following extensive research and analysis of prior EU Tax Survey results as well as the European tax ecosystem in general. The goals of the 1st PG Workshop were the following:

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• Defining – Validating the core EU Tax Values:
• Validating the core Tax Functional Domains
• Validating the scope of the EU Tax Functional Domains
• Validating the EU Tax Career Paths

The Tax Core Values as they have unanimously resulted from the 1st Tax PG Workshop are:

1. Strong Ethics and High Integrity
2. Data Security Focus
3. Customer Service Orientation
4. Public Service Commitment
5. Operational Excellence
6. Continual Learning and Professional Development
7. EU Collaboration Attitude

The PG has validated the six Core Tax Functional Domains, which are the following:

1. Policy & Law (Including International Affairs)
2. Tax Fraud & Investigation (Including Large Taxpayer unit)
3. Tax Collection (Including Large Taxpayer unit)
4. Taxpayer Services (Including Registration and Large Taxpayer unit)
5. Audit (Including Large Taxpayer unit and International Affairs)
6. Risk Management

As well as the Supportive Functions.

Participants were encouraged to be active contributors in group exercises and discussions as well as in the assignments that they must do at home. The next meeting of the Fiscalis 2020 project group, supporting the development of an EU Tax Competency Framework, it will take place on December 2018 in Brussels. The next PG Workshop 18 & 19.12.18 Goals are the following:

• Final Draft of EU Tax Values & scopes
• Draft of EU Tax Core Functional Domains & scopes
• Final draft of EU Tax Career Paths
• Validation of 2nd draft Role Mapping Matrix

We would like to thank all the participants for their enthusiasm, positive spirit and their active participation that contributed the most to the success of this first PG meeting.