The regional workshop on the evaluation of tax expenditures opened on Tuesday, October 8 in Abidjan. Four days of exchange and sharing of experience on the tax transition to improve sub-regional integration through the strengthening of coordination mechanisms in WAEMU member States.

Faced with many economic and social challenges, these countries hope to find strategies to optimize domestic tax revenues. In these states, however, tax exemptions are very often seen as factors in the underperformance of tax administrations. A situation that leads them to mobilize more domestic revenues.

In 2016, the amount of tax exemptions amounted to CFAF 329 billion in 2016, CFAF 359 billion in 2017 and CFAF 341 billion in 2018 in Côte d'Ivoire. These figures represent just over 10% of the total revenue mobilized and 1.4% of GDP in these different periods.

"Faced with these revenue losses due to tax expenditures, it is important to have relevant information, in order to assess at its fair value, the budgetary, economic and social impact of the tax advantages that the State grants to certain companies, to certain sectors of activity or to certain categories of the population," maintained Ouattara Sié Abou, Director General of Taxes of Côte d'Ivoire.

This workshop is being held in a context marked by the waemu authorities' desire to rationalize tax expenditures to improve the level of tax revenue mobilization in member States.

A desire materialized by the adoption in the WAEMU Council of Ministers, on June 21, 2019, of an action plan for the optimal mobilization of tax revenues in order to consolidate the budgetary space of member States and allow them to make the investment expenditure necessary for implementation economic and social development plans.