Tax Academy to raise professional, ethical standards

- my will not only provide the country’s revenue collectors and administrators with continuing training on best practices to hone their competitiveness but will also sharpen their commitment to their profession and raise their ethical standards as well, Dominguez 3rd.

Dominguez said that on the watch of President Duterte, the Department of Finance (DoF) has taken a “great leap forward” in professionalizing revenue agencies by putting flesh into the Philippine Tax Academy (PTA) eight years after it was envisioned under Republic Act 10143.

“This will be a multidimensional educational and research institution. It will play a key role in the culture change we seek to achieve in our revenue agencies. Through the PTA, we could aspire for a cluster of revenue agencies equipped with the best skills available and imbued with the most admirable ethical norms possible,” said Dominguez during the launching of the PTA at the Ayuntamiento de Manila building of the Bureau of Treasury (BTr) in Intramuros, Manila

Dominguez said that in the course of the DoF’s strategic planning for the PTA, it had envisioned the institution as “a fully functioning and selfsustaining dynamic and innovative center of excellence for capacitating tax and customs administrators, taxpayers and other stakeholders.”

During the launching, Dominguez also gave an overview of the seven “imperatives” that the DOF should ensure to effectively perform its primary function of funding the government.

These seven imperatives, he said, are to make sure the economy is growing; put in place a fair taxation system to encourage tax compliance; have - nel; guarantee prudent spending by in order to achieve high credit ratings that would enable the government to borrow more at lower costs; have an excellent treasury department that knows when, how, and how much, to borrow; and lastly, maintain productive relationships with the country’s foreign funders.

Dominguez said he expects the PTA to collect information from all over the world and build strong linkages between research and education, while ensuring “complementarity between professional training and professional management.”

“Let’s do this and let’s do it well. - ing revenue agencies manned by highly motivated and highly skilled men and women,” Dominguez told and its attached agencies gathered at the institution’s formal launching.

Among the launch’s activities was an orientation workshop for 52 local treasurers and 130 newly hired employees of the DoF and its attached agencies to familiarize them with the revenue generation functions of the government.

Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran, who was designated by Dominguez to oversee the establishment of the Academy, said the participants in the inaugural workshop comprise 30 new hires from the DOF, 30 from the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), Local Government Finance (BLGF) along with 52 local treasurers.