Action programme for taxation (Fiscalis 2020), 2014-2020

This Commission staff working paper on the Fiscalis 2020 programme concerns the progress report for 2018.

It noted that 2018 was the fifth year of activities under the Fiscalis 2020 programme and represented a continuity of many actions of 2017.

In terms of performance measurement, 2018 was the fifth year for which a number of indicators could be collected. The indicators obtained under the framework in 2018 give an overall positive assessment, showing that the programme was on course to fulfilling its objectives.

Budget and expert teams

There were no significant changes to the budget levels of previous years, with the exception of some fluctuations on the budget allocated to expert teams (increase of 73% in 2018 by comparison to 2017 due to the four new expert teams launched during the year). In the last four years, the committed expenses on joint actions (organised under the grant agreements) have increased year after year in line with the increase in the number of participants and actions. The amounts dedicated to fund expert teams also rose in 2018, following a decrease in 2017.  

Key observations

These can be deduced from the analysis of the performance measurement framework indicators in 2018. They are as follows:

- continued strong demand for programme support;

- high level of achievement of results of the joint actions is reported by the action managers;

- very positive assessment of the achieved results of the joint actions, their usefulness and met expectations by national tax officials who participated in them;

- low awareness rate, as shown by the results of the programme polls and by the conclusions of the mid-term evaluation;

- the European Information Systems (EIS) are regularly operated and resistant to increased volume of data traffic;

- new EIS developments are largely taking place in line with the planning thanks to the support of the programme. The systems are regularly maintained and updated and the user support and training are functioning properly;

- increase in the number of eLearning modules used by national administrations and complete technical migration of training modules.