ABSTRACT
Tax administration defines tax policy. The manner in which a tax is implemented determines the actual distribution of tax burden in the economy, how much the tax costs to collect, and what the economic incentives endemic to the tax will produce. How a tax is collected is itself a policy choice, as all major taxes can be designed with various balances between an effort by tax administrators and by individual taxpayers in the fulfillment of tax obligations. Because poorly designed processes of tax administration can subvert even the best tax systems, considerable attention to administrative structure is a critical element in fiscal system design.
