Governments today face increasing demands for services by the public in an environment of limited resources. Thus, by ensuring tax and revenue systems are managed effectively, government can maximize revenues in order to fulfill its responsibility for the wellbeing of her citizens by ensuring the security of a state; manage the economy to bring about growth and development as well as to maintain and improve the quality of the environment.
Taken into consideration the above condition, ASEANSAI Knowledge Sharing Committee held the 1st Focus Group Discussion on the Audit of Revenue from 2 to 4 March 2016 in Vientiane, Lao PDR. The research aims to enhance the audit capability of ASEANSAI member countries in auditing revenue by exchanging and sharing of knowledge and current practices and also developing a general guideline on revenue audits.
As revenue or tax collection has been cited as one of the high risk areas that are prone to leakage and mismanagement, revenue audit plays a significant role in the field of public sector auditing. With limited auditing guidance materials available, there is a need for ASEANSAI to collaboratively address this issue to overcome the shortcomings and promote best practices in revenue audit.
Under Section 20, ISSAI 1 (The Lima Declaration), SAIs shall be empowered to audit the collection of taxes as extensively as possible and, in doing so, to examine individual tax files. Besides that, it states that tax audits are primarily legality and regularity audits; however, when auditing the application of tax laws, SAIs shall also examine the system and efficiency of tax collection, the achievement of revenue targets and, if appropriate, shall propose improvements to the legislative body.
All ASEANSAI member countries involved to participate in this project while SAI Malaysia will be the project lead. Three Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) will be held to finalize the research project during year 2016.
It is expected that the project will promote SAIs cooperation, collaborate and continue the improvement through knowledge sharing (best practice as well as research on issues of mutual interest and concern), share network aimed at enhance the commitment of ASEANSAI members, offer mutual services and bridge possible gaps between management knowledge and information need among SAIs, disseminate audit guideline and strengthen communication among ASEANSAI members.
