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.

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.

This research aims to enhance the audit capability of ASEANSAI member countries in auditing revenue by:

• exchanging and sharing of knowledge and current practices; and
• developing a general guideline on revenue audit.

The scopes of the project include the audit of revenue on:

• custom and excise duties;
• goods and services tax or value added tax; and
• income tax.