 Well, thank you everyone on the live stream. Welcome for joining our event this morning. I'm Erin Scrantz, a communications officer at the World Bank Group. And this is the inaugural event of the prosperity collaborative tax and technology during and beyond the coronavirus pandemic. We have a great panel for you today and we're very excited to talk with everyone. But first, a few housekeeping items, if you have any questions for the panelists during the event, you can go ahead and email them to digi at new america.org or you can tweet about the event with the hashtag prosperity collaborative with that out of the way. I'd like to hand things over to Marcelo Estavao global director for macroeconomics trade and investment at the World Bank Group over to you, Marcello. Thank you very much, Erin. First of all, I'd like to welcome everybody. This is quite important event. It really is an event that marks this ongoing collaboration with key partners in this space. It's a great collaboration. Let me give overarching kind of view of what's happening right now and how this collaboration fits the crisis that you're facing. The coronavirus has been spreading rapidly across the world. It's December 2019 and the World Health Organization declared the global pandemic on March 11. Although countries are now far more prepared for a pandemic than in the past, the world is also far more interconnected, making the contagion particularly dangerous. Now, it is a fact that this pandemic will result in a sudden and sharp recession for the global economy starting this year. We see the data right now, the bad data on economic growth right now. We are actually revising the global GDP growth projections and we expect now a sizable drop in global GDP in the range of 3% of this year. Now, it is feared that even though a good policy response can limit its duration, its effects will be felt for a long time. Thus, we are talking about a key fiscal issue that is on public revenue, how public revenue is going to behave and how we can help countries to improve revenue collection. The global recession is actually going to cause a significant public revenue loss. Additional public spending will be necessary to manage and contain the pandemic and to mitigate the loss of incomes for vulnerable households and businesses. So many countries are struggling to mobilize the necessary resources for an effective fiscal response. Many countries have also much higher public debt that's at the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the situation prior to this global crisis. The number of low-income countries at an elevated risk of that stress is also up sharply, and there is a growing international concern about that situation. This means that many countries enter the COVID-19 pandemic with significantly reduced fiscal space to respond to the pursuing economic crisis. So, the world bank is quite involved into this issue, both on the debt side and on the policy side. Indeed, last week, the World Bank Group announced that its emergency operations to fight the economic impacts of the coronavirus has reached 100 developing countries. And that's home to 7% of the world's population. The assistance is the largest and fastest crisis response in the bank group's history. It represents a significant step in implementing our commitment to provide up to $160 billion in grants and financial support over a 15-month period. Now, I mentioned that debt issues. So, in support of the country's significant debt burden, the G20 launched the debt suspension initiative, the debt service suspension initiative, following calls from our bank president and the IMF managing director. So, this initiative will suspend debt service payments on bilateral debt over the initial period between May and December 2020 for either countries. It could free up resources of up to $9 billion from debt service obligations to bilateral creditors alone. Discussion on the suspension of debt service payments to commercial credits are underway, but that doesn't impinge upon the official initiative. The World Bank is providing support in the implementation of this initiative, and like I said, we are also really stepping up net positive flows to those countries. As the amount of loan that we give to them is larger, much larger, six times larger than the amount of interest and payments they are paying the World Bank. Now, come to the revenue administration response to the COVID-19 related slowdown, which is directly related to the event. Why it is too early to assess the impact, revenues are expected to decline faster than GDP due to the economic slowdown. In fact, the impact on revenues will likely exceed the hit on economic growth. As the world works to manage the current crisis and the economic slowdown, several governments have announced preliminary measures in recent days and weeks, many with the support of the World Bank and our team, ranging from providing automatic rollover of debt to small businesses that happens actually in developed economies like Italy and Germany, to extend unemployment insurance equivalent to nearly 100% of wages to all laid off works like you saw in France. This is actually generally aimed at assisting business individuals with cash flow problems so that liquid shortfalls do not become so synchronized. So we are currently in this containment phase. It's not the phase to support necessary big projects because of social isolation, but it's the time to contain the effects of the crisis. Many governments have undertaken a range of policy measures beyond the ones that I mentioned before, such as reducing tax or health related expenditures, providing relief to vulnerable taxpayers, and cutting tax rates to promote economic activity, more broadly. Administratively, deadlines for filing have been extended, installment arrangements put in place for cash-strapped taxpayers, and taxpayer services virtualized. Business continuity measures have been instituted to enable tax officials to work remotely, and communications plans have been placed to ensure that taxpayers know how to file and pay taxes, and receive answers to key tax queries when face-to-face contacts no longer possible. Again, the issue that we are going to discuss today is quite important on how to improve non-face-to-face contacts. Countries with a developed digital tax infrastructure have been more agile in adapting to the crisis because the systems are online and do not require physical presence. The IT systems enable officials to work remotely, and importantly, they have a high quality taxpayer file that provides robust data in a safe and secure manner to help analyze the fiscal consequences of proposed tax measures. Now, we know that advancing technology helps the potential to transform tax systems. Successfully deployed information technology can help build trust between taxpayers and government and make taxation systems not transparent. This is because digital solutions provide the same experience to everyone who are using them, reduce discretion and make it clear to everyone what the procedures are. As we look towards this recovery phase, and there will be a recovery from this crisis, believe me, it may take a while, but there will be a recovery. Digital infrastructure will be key to driving the efficiency of tax administrations through automation and simplification, as you provide clear benefits to taxpayers in the form of lower compliance costs. Digital solutions can also be effective in expanding the tax base. Remember, a recovery time may not be the best time to raise taxes, but it may be the time to expand the tax base. And that can be done, including by identifying and eliminating sources of persistent non-compliance and fraud, as well as supporting new revenue streams, which for many countries could include, for instance, property taxation. Now, this does not necessarily mean more taxes, again, but a shift in that tax. So, recognize the significant potential in this technology, also as well as a barrier to the adoption. We in the World Bank, UI, MIT, New America, and Boston Global Forum decide to launch the Prosperity Collaborative. Its purpose is to help transform tax system in developing countries through greater adoption of innovative technology, through capacity building, and the creation of a new class of digital public goods under the motto, build once, deploy anywhere. New innovative technologies can provide material automation relief that will result in more efficient tax administration. This innovative technology and data systems are importantly solving complex tax problems much more effectively, resulting in a new collective intelligence, the best of humans and machines together. So we will work with governments to increase transparency, but also to increase accountability around the use of tax revenue and assist public institutions that want to develop metrics and storytelling capacity to show the people how tax receipts are being directed to meet the needs of individuals and society. So the collaborative's work will focus on, first, strengthening the capacity of developing countries, and that's in particular the capacity to digitally transform the tax systems through training and knowledge sharing. Two, facilitating the development of innovative tax technologies and new standards where there is strong need for developing countries and a gap in the market. Three, promoting open source technology, governance models that can be used within existing systems to lower implementation costs and to adhere to common standards and data models to encourage collaboration across countries. We are building a global ecosystem of stakeholders. We form this group of stakeholders as the prosperity collaboratives because we believe that no single institution has the capabilities, capacity and legitimacy to develop and implement innovative technologies on a broad scale. There are three ways to get involved in our work. Join us to build digital tax solutions and applicable standards. Work with us to deploy digital technologies in your country and help shape this work and mobilize the necessary resources. On behalf of the Prosperity Collaborative, thank you for joining this event. Let me hand over now the baton to Kiara Bronke, who you moderate the first panel. Kiara has the World Bank's fiscal policy and sustainable growth unit. It is her and her team that have worked with the other partners to make this collaboration an event possible. So I want to thank all of you. I have to apologize. They have to move to another official discussion now, but I'm really excited about this work, and I think all of you are doing a great job. Thank you very much, everybody, and have a good discussion. Thank you, Marcelo, and good luck with the next meeting. In the meantime, I want to say good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to everyone who is connecting on screen. And welcome to this session that will cover the new role of tax administrations in pandemic response. As Marcelo mentioned, the global pandemic has prompted many governments to call on tax administrations to take on new roles, including alleviating cash flow constraints of businesses and individuals. But in some cases, tax administrations have been even asked to help in transferring cash to less advantage seat citizens under this COVID-19 pandemic. Administratively, many revenue authorities had to ensure that their IT system to be accessed by officials working from home, expand online services, monitor new compliance with, and so on. Big tasks that in many cases have not never had to face before. All urgent demands do require also different response in addition to being immediate, and there is definitely an expectation of business continuity, despite the need to respect social distancing. This panel will focus on how tax administrations are adapting to the current crisis. We're joined by a world-class panel that will help us better understand the evolving role of the tax administration. And the questions that we want to explore as much as possible in this one hour that we have these distinguished guests with us are five. And one is how COVID-19 is such a unique situation and how is it straining and what is the type of challenges it's facing on tax administration. The other one is what tools have been useful to tax administration in these circumstances. What are we learning? What challenges are tax administration facing in effectively implementing related programs, lack of tax data, target beneficiary, transparency, preventing fraud, and maintaining data security and privacy in the current situation. Another question is how have tax administration remained resilient during the crisis while working remotely? How do they manage HR? And then coming out of the immediacy of the pandemic, what longer-term changes will tax administration implement to improve resiliency? And I guess we don't have a crystal ball, but if we could, I want to hear from our speakers. How do they think the tax administration will reshape themselves so they change their business process? And so without further ado, let me introduce our panelists and then I'll give them the floor. And I think the rule of the game today is that I will give five minutes to each to introduce themselves and also to give us the key points in from their own perspective. And then I will ask a few questions and then I think we will open the floor for some additional questions. So we have four this morning in this section on my panel and one is Kate Barton. Welcome, Kate. Thank you. Hi, Kate. She's joining from the Ernestine Young, and which I will say now EY to keep it short. And she is the global vice chair of tax. And as a global leader of the Ernestine Young tax practice, she has a preview worldwide. And she is responsible for strategy and operations, people development, risk management and learning and innovation efforts. And so I am looking forward to hearing from you, Kate. And thank you for finding the time to stay with us today. Our second panelist is Tara Piedimu. Hi, Tara. Hi, Kate. Hi, so Dr. Piedimu is a commissioner for intelligence and strategic operations for the Kenya Revenue Authority. Prior to his current role, he served as a deputy commissioner. The same department where he was responsible for tax intelligence analysis and source management. And welcome, Tara. Our second panelist is Rahul, who is a colleague of mine. And Rahul is the lead economist and tax specialist at the World Bank. He has over 30 years experience in public sector management reform. And I think his passion and love has been, at least since I've been knowing him, tax administration and customs. Welcome, Rahul. And last but definitely not least is Sandy Pentland. Sandy is a professor at MIT and directs MIT Connections Science. This is an MIT-wide initiative and previously helped create a direct MIT media lab. Welcome, Sandy. And Sandy is also one of the most cited computational scientists in the world. And for declaring one of the seven most powerful data scientists. So we are absolutely delighted to have you and also looking forward to hearing from you, Sandy. My pleasure. Let me, let's get started and let me turn to Kate. Representing one of the big four advisory and tax advisory agencies in the world. What are the types of challenges your clients think you're facing at this moment? And where are they sticking your help in which area? And is there a silver lining in all of this? Well, I think companies right now are challenged with just the level of activity. I mean, first and foremost, they're very concerned about their people. And so everybody has really put people at the heart of their business and trying to make sure that their employees are safeguarded their lives. And then they're focused on their livelihoods and really making sure that the company continues. And so companies are being impacted by the pandemic in all different ways. But I think what's for sure is that every one of them is in fact impacted. And so they're really devoted to their employees and trying to keep everything afloat. And so what I'm seeing is companies have business as usual activities. Some of them were pretty well prepared if they had technology that was on, you know, out and about and had been distributed evenly to all of their employees. But we found that many of our clients were actually not prepared from a technology base. So getting people first situated so that they could effectively work from home was first order of business. Once that was done, you know, just getting the morale to stay focused and get work done. And then on top of that, you know, because we're here and talking about tax administrations, many governments took decisive action and dramatic action to keep the economies afloat. And so the global stimulus that's been issued has been far reaching and quite quite complicated for companies to avail themselves. So a lot of companies right now are still navigating the labyrinth of these new rules. And so we've been tracking, as EY, 135 countries, global stimulus, 2,100 legislative changes. You can imagine how hard that is for companies to stay on top of and to try to figure out what they should avail themselves and what they shouldn't, what they're entitled to, what makes sense from a reputational risk perspective. So tax administrations, a lot of questions coming to them to help them, you know, help these companies understand these rules and navigate them. So there's a tremendous volume of work. And so everybody right now is just suffering a little bit from what we call blurs day, you know, Monday looking like Wednesday looking like Friday. So I don't know if that resonates for you. But, you know, what we're certain of is there's no shortage of work. Thank you, Kate. Indeed, it does resonate a lot. I think it's an interesting interaction that so it's not just that the tax administration are trying first of all to look after their own stuff. And what you're saying is that they're also putting pressure on the on your companies like yourselves to also see how they can be helped. And so let me turn to Tara. Tara obviously represents a very important tax administration. And, Tara, I know that your stuff are currently under lockdown. So how is the organization handling the multiple competing demands for upholding compliance and collection and providing tax relief to all of our groups, maintaining staff productivity and safety while at the same time they have to respect social distancing and actually stay locked in. What is the experience and does it resonate with Kate's point of view? Thank you, Tara. And Kenya and KRA has implemented a few strategies. One to keep with the WHO and Ministry of Health Directives on social distancing and other regulations. One of the things that the Kenya Revenue Authority has implemented is the use of technology in tax filing, tax payment and accounting. One of the things that we've been able to do is one of the KRA staff have been asked to keep the social distance. And in that sense, we've been able to split the teams into the on-site and off-site. And those who are working at the off-site are allowed to have VPN, the virtual connectivity network where they will still have full access as if they're working from their ordinary stations. To do that, it comes along with challenges of cybersecurity, confidentiality of information, the use of public networks. But then again, KRA has implemented internal measures to ensure that the network is kept safe so that we can keep the network and the database for the taxpayers confidential. In addition, KRA has also complied with the Directives by the President. We're sure that people over a certain age at the moment, people above 58 years of age and people with pre-conditions have been asked to work from home and also people with young children, people with who are pre-disposed. Those are the people currently working from off-site. However, not necessarily non-essential, but other officers have also been asked to take leave so that we can keep social distancing practical. So you can find that at the moment we have almost 50% or in some offices, 30% existence of staff while at the same time keeping all the services running. Additionally, we've also asked taxpayers to continue obeying the usual requirements of filing returns and payment. And in that case then, any person with any concern in terms of knowledge of how to be helped can actually get in touch with our customer service officers who will then be able to advise them on what to do. Those are the few measures that I'll mention at the moment as we progress with the discussion. Thank you, Tara. Thank you very much. So interesting how the KRA is basically becoming more creative and trying to adapt to the situation, but still maintaining business continuity. And so now we have heard the experience of Kenya. We'll turn to Raul. Raul is based in Central Asia in Uzbekistan. Raul, from your point of observation and also point of operation. You're helping basically the World Bank is helping to support some of the low income countries in Central Asia. And what are the key elements to take into consideration to make tax distance more efficient and tax administration resilient in the current context? And what do you think are the lessons that we can share with other countries of similar situation with challenges? Over to you, Raul. Thank you, Chiara. First of all, I'm going to talk about the key lessons learned in our operations and I will also talk about the tools that we are using to help tax administration get back on track. To help with this recovery phase that Marcelo was mentioning. First of all, regarding an efficient administration of the tax system is a critical lesson to have a good understanding of technology and technology is playing a key role as a way to mitigate declining revenues and ensure business continuity. When countries have this capacity in the declining revenues, revenues is only a function of pure economic factors and administrative factors don't have an influence here. Other key lesson that emerges is the need to pay attention to the cycle of maturity, adoption and sophistication of specific technologies. So providing the adequate sequence to revenue administrations when it comes to absorbing adopting new technologies. Another important lesson is that context is of the essence. Countries have different starting points, different levels of readiness, different levels of capacity. Actually low capacity environments are suffering the most in terms of declining revenues and they are having more many difficulties in keeping the administration completely functional. That's why we are developing a specific analysis, taking into account different levels of capacities we are developing maturity models for this. We are also developing and implementing a stress test to assess preparedness of revenue bodies to face challenges posed by this crisis. It's also vital to consider the importance of maintaining business continuity. In this regard, we are working with our counter to developing this business continuity. This goes far beyond the availability of ICT platforms or IT systems. This includes inter alia maintaining the safety of staff and taxpayers creating an emergency task force and continuously providing critical services to taxpayers. It's also important. Which is I think the mission link. We need to include this government dimension in our plans that entails moving towards a government focus with our agenda. Technology plays a key role. And it's also important to ensure that the administration has in place adequate internal system and clear and timely decision making processes in a rapidly changing environment. What's the end game then game is clear the task administration need the need to move to a digital future. The digital administration of the future will default. Of course the pathways to this end will vary from country to country based on the context. We also need to highlight that there are risks further down the road. There are opportunities for corrupted practices and increased risk of abuse, tax evasion or tax fraud. In case I would like to highlight the role of technology as a key element of an anti corruption strategy. Through automation and 18 able procedures several aspects of the administration activity activity become less vulnerable to corruption. Finally, there is also an important aspect related to the tax system. These days the key element of discussion with our counterparts is the acceleration of the machine as a massive acceleration of digital activities or transactions. That calls for rebumping the tax systems and tailor the tax systems to this new situation. And the debate is shifting from thinking of taxing new activities. Towards defining the traits of these digital business models in order to adapt it to this new situation. I stop here and maybe we can dig deeper into these topics in the following discussion. Thank you, Raul. Thank you and it's so first of all I thought it was interesting that the effort at least from your point of view or how the World Bank is approaching it for tax administration is to help them to keep business as usual. And so in a way to distinguish between what could be a revenue loss due to weak tax administration from actually a serious deterioration of the economic performance of the country due to the COVID-19 crisis. And so in a way this effort continues because it's not very different from before the crisis. That's exactly the objective of tax administration. But what is new is to try to rethink the business models and certainly I guess I think I heard or I'm trying to interpret perhaps that some countries are regretting that maybe they have not made progress or faster progress on adopting technological I mean transforming the tax system tax administration and adopting digital taxation earlier. And I know that it's very hard and I hope we'll talk now also with Sandy. What are the challenges but also the benefits that go well beyond tax administration of leveraging digital technology and modernizing tax system. Sandy. Thank you. There's a big saying that there is more tax than tax. And tax administrations possess more data about the economy than perhaps any other government body. And this is not really tapped on or leveraged. And now with your broad experience and used to think about big data. I knew what is your wisdom in this. In this. And I guess I'll leave it to you. But I think what we would like to hear from your experiences. First of all of course the advanced economies. But also if you have some some advice or some thoughts for less developed economies and how could they improve. I think the interesting thing here is the head of a very large bank said to me. We had a 10 year plan for going digital and we did it this month. Well we're seeing this is incredible acceleration of changing the use of digital the way processes happen and so forth. And what we've been involved in is sort of a broadening of the remit of tax authorities. So tax authorities if you think it more broadly are the main type of connection between government and the citizens. They're incredibly important not just for the money that goes out. But also because they give you a view into how the economy is doing. How local neighborhoods are doing what parts of the economy are doing worse or better and that lets you shape policy. Not just for tax but for everything. And you see that for instance in the United States. It turns out that you can use tax returns tax data to be able to predict things like how well the children will grow up. How risk are they how at risk are people for even diseases or things like that. Because poverty lack of access lack of opportunity shows up in the financial data often first and can be used to to set policy. So for us as we're using that in Australia now working with the government there to help them do economic reconstruction after COVID because they're fairly past it. But also growth because they're facing a number of unique economic challenges. So so tax data tax authorities are unique view that the government has into the health of their society. We've been able to work for instance with Columbia be able to use tax data to better target social programs. So in order to be able to target social programs correctly. You have to know something about the families the families in the area the local conditions and the tax data gives you a view into that that's that's really unique. At a sort of broader level. So so so basically tax is is a tremendous lever for better government for more effective government. Not just the revenue aspect of it but all branches of policy. And I think a good way to think about this is is that over many many many years tax authorities governments but also businesses become siloed. You get these verticals where the data stays stuck there. And what we're seeing is that the new technologies that allow us to bridge between the cell is not to get rid of them but to allow communication between them. And so for us as we've helped set up systems for fidelity investment to help investors citizens to move data between banks without risking their personal data. We've worked with into it which does most of the personal taxes in the United States and small businesses. So that small businesses can get a better integrated view of all the different interactions they have with government. And I think that that theme of the digital allowing us to connect silos to be more efficient to give a more coherent and unified view of what's going on. Maybe a good way to think about the direction to go for the future. So I'll just stop there. Thank you standing. This is very interesting and I know I'll go for another round but perhaps follow up question from me standing on. We want to give a sense also from learning from the crisis what what could what could a tax system look like in the future. That's one thing. And I think what you're saying is I like this really different or quite different dimension of looking at tax administrations as not the bad guys but actually a fantastic intermediary. As you were saying between government and citizens to be able to of course collect revenues but also to facilitate the interaction and also help governments to have a better sense of what their citizens profiles are. What I think is the challenge for some of us and especially in countries where Raul is or even Tara may have fully made more is also the gray economy. There's a lot of informal economy. And I think it's one of the perhaps opportunities of digital technology but it would be great to hear from you. It's also how to capture not in the negative sense but how to also bring in workers a lot of workers that are actually operating informally without any right in the system. You know the sorts of things that we've done in the past. We were very important in bringing sort of digital payments to day workers in Latin America. So day workers are among the poorest in Latin America and by providing them with digital tools on their mobile telephones. They could get better more efficient employment. So we were making the day labor market more efficient in Kenya. In Kenya of course you've had for a long time digital payments and that's turned out to be something which brings large segments of the economy into and changes the level of fraud and the grayness of this market. And I think that that's a vision of where we can go is that even the poorest can benefit from having very efficient digital payments, digital logistics, digital labor, all of the things that go to make up a person's life. And the tax authority can facilitate all of that. And it's a delicate dance of course because you don't want to be the poor people to be seen as victims of tax authority. But I think that that can be made fairly clear, particularly if the tax authority begins to be more the interface so that payments as well as tax come through these digital channels. So I think there's a lot of evidence that you can reach all strata of society and just through the advantage of having these easy digital interfaces, the gray markets evaporate over time. Because it's just easier to operate and it needs to be proved trustworthy and so forth. But I think that that will happen over time and we can accelerate that. Thank you, Sandy. This is very interesting. I think it's pretty exciting. I want to like to, because the opportunities, it's also to change the face of the tax administration or the way it is perceived. And potentially there can be other functions that can be brought together, of course with the sensitivities of the way we trust these institutions and the way we perceive them. So it does require also some change in that respect. Tara, from your perspective Kenya and so different experience from the US or Latin America, what do you think about? What is your view about these innovations and the potential? And is the Kenyan government and KRA thinking in these terms and how? Sorry. Yeah, just going back to where Sandy left. Kenya is also part of global. It revolution. At the moment we have, I think one of the largest mobile mobile cash transfers. And much of the economy is reliant on. Mobile cash transfers. Actually, to be precise, one of the COVID-19 pandemic response is the shift of cash economy to mobile and online banking as a means of responding to transmission community transmission. And part of that is also creating a lot of gray area in terms of tax evasion. Because then it's highly likely that mobile transfer is done casually as opposed to the ordinary business transactions. Some of the things that Kenya and indeed part of Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa post COVID thinking is the future of audits. What is a given the current. So distancing, what is the future of onsite audits and also verification of consignments from international builders. The thinking is probably to have stronger systems. The systems that are able to detect fraud systems that are able to predict. And predict corruption. Luckily, we have some of the systems that have been developed artificial intelligence systems. We have some systems on blockchain management. And all the systems that we actually think that the system that will enhance post COVID recovery strategy. Kenya and indeed carry is thinking around the same systems. Currently, the system that we use is a system on itax is domestic tax. The system called Simba or ICMS for the customs. The array is thinking around having an artificial intelligence system around the two systems so that as we reduce the contact with the taxpayers, we will be having system detecting what physical contact would otherwise detect. The other thinking around the same systems is also the policy review. 19 as indicated or rather shown. There's a shift in terms of sector spending. And now spending more necessary items. Things that are essential services essential items. And for them to shift to essential goods like for example, foods, clothing, I mean, even transfer of clothing to foods. Those are items that are either exempt or zero rated. Highly likely there is very little tax that you can get from it. Supermarkets are now selling more than a construction hardware. So, and of course the tax rates applied in the supermarkets are largely lower or some of them exempt. The end of the day will have less tax collection from these items. So going forward. With 19 as already shown that even for policy formulation will then follow the cash or money shifts into other sectors. Those are the few strategies that we've been able to also. We also have these systems called both chats. The artificial intelligence connectivity where instead of having an interaction between taxpayer and the tax man for that matter. Be having a system having a direct chat with the taxpayer to give highlights on registration of filing or even payment. Those are the systems that we are having discussions again going forward. Thank you. Thank you. Very interesting overview of what's going on. And I really would have a lot of questions to follow up. But let me ask first Raul that he may bring another perspective that perhaps you mentioned earlier about the risk of fraud or. No compliance. Let's put it that way. It's high. I would like also to hear a bit from you how these countries are protecting from them. Also from bad practices or aggressive practices from large international companies if there is also a risk in that dimension from where you sit. Thank you. It's very interesting. It's at this point. In case there are two things here. One is the measures that countries are. These are prone to abuse. For example when you are. You see that some countries are adopting or granting holidays. This leads in some cases to companies making some kind of arrangements to gain the system. So that's why the controls are that has to be tightened. In other cases when you try to expedite the process of granting the refunds. This can be also prone to abuse in the sense that some people can benefit from abusing the system. These are the things that we need that we need to take control of that. The other thing that. Is that we have to expect. The risk of non-compliance further down the road. This is what we can expect from this situation. And that means that we need to help countries reformulate their compliance and informal strategies. You have to expect an increase in tax arrears in tax rates. You have to expect that some companies maybe will abuse the system in terms of current forward to revenue losses. And of course the international tax problems regarding transfer pricing will continue. But definitely there are two dimensions to this problem. One is that the measures that we are adopting. They have to be closely monitored in order to to be sure that the system is not abused. And on the other hand we need to think about the recovery phase. We need to help a tax administration to get back to the bottom track in this recovery. In order to be able to control this widespread non-compliance situation that we expect. Thank you Raul. Kate. I think you're sitting in a very important position because you are basically covering EY worldwide in tax administration. And I'm sure there is a lot to learn from your clients. And if you had a crystal ball or if you tell based on what we hear but also what you know. And what do you see tax administrations around the world going forward? Let's assume this as Marcelo said the COVID crisis. We will get over it. We will recover. But of course there are things that will be different. There will be a new norm. And you heard Raul we need to think about reformulation of how we should think about compliance. The role of tax administration as also kind of the intermediaries or integrators between citizens, tax payers and government. What is your what do you if you could say or think what is what would tax administration look like in the future. And then also what is the role that you foresee for this prosperity collaborative that we have today on the agenda. Thank you, Karen, maybe picking up on I'll make two points on picking up on the thread before. One of the things that we've observed in the current situation in the pandemic is that some of the developed markets actually have a lot to learn from the developing markets. And so the emerging markets in some instances, their technology platform supporting their tax administration have been actually more digitally enabled. And have really fostered the stimulus and a lot of things that the government wanted to do to get cash to the right hands and the like. And so I had a recent client is share with me out in Seattle that they actually had to leave their their house with their family. Because in some cases they had to go back into the corporate headquarters to actually do wet signatures. And so there were some countries around the world that are still requiring a wet signature in order to do a really critical filing. And so many of the developing countries out there have actually moved past that and have allowed digital signatures. I know a small thing but a big deal for a big multinational that I thought was an interesting experience. So I want to lose that thread. But I think the way forward I mean to answer your question about what we see on the horizon is we see that tax policy is going to be front and center in the days ahead. And so tax administrations who are really responsible for executing on that are going to play a critical role. When you think about the amount of debt that so many countries around the world have just gone into the support the stimulus. I mean right now the stimulus in the United States is 37% of the economy. Their GDP on worldwide it's 20% around the world and you know countries will vary. So it's substantial. So where is this going to get paid. And so one of the things that I think we're going to see is increased taxes. They're going to come in different forms this morning the EU. So the European Union came out with their plan of attack here on how they're going to pay for the stimulus in the European Union. And I think that we're going to see more jurisdictions come out. So you know will we see for example in the United States a US federal that you know again it's never been politically favorable. And so typically any any officer puts in a VAT does not get reelected. But you know we'll see whether that happens or will we see carbon taxes. It's going to be you know I think more taxes which only puts more on us if you will on tax administrations because they have to administer all of this. And I think we're seeing the importance of how being healthy all lines you know call centers. You have that you are using technology to the fullest or all your people enabled today. Do they have the proper laptops in case they do need to work from home. They don't have just desktops back in the office. So there's so much here that I think we're going to see in the future. And I think the prosperity collaborative can play a critical role in trying to make sure that you know governments all over the world are really prepared for this for this new norm that we're all envisioning. Thank you Kate. And while we are discussing let me invite the audience if they have questions. Sorry. I just just to clarify that they can email to the G. E. The I. G. I. At New America. Or they can tweet. Hashtag. Prosperity collaborative. Don't be shy. Ask questions. We have colleagues that are picking them up. And I'd like also to open the floor to a few questions. While we are waiting and Erin is helping with the rest of the team to collect them. Sandy, I want to push this thing of innovation. I know it will be also for panel two, but. And yes, Kate has given us that perspective that tax policy will be extremely important. So fiscal policy in general, because we will have to rein in its larger expenditure and expansionary policy that have been helping respond to the crisis in the short term, but we need to find a solution for the long term. So this is. This is to us the economist. I'd like to believe that there is more to it. That with digital technology. It's possible to do things that we will not be able to do for and also because of digital technology. Let me take a step backwards. I said, look, the, the consumption pattern is changing now. So part of the. So even if you have a super perfect tax administration that is super efficient and is able to capture or, you know, to have a full control of the tax base. There is a shifting pattern and right now consumers or taxpayers are mostly consuming, which is obviously the AT or tax sales tax type of. That's based. Mostly items that actually have a low tax or a zero tax by law by law, it's normal. There is a natural decline in revenue. And maybe those patterns will not change back fast. Even if we reopen and we go back to normality. So there is an issue of challenge of tax base. The other is that there is we are seeing that the industrial or the sisters. There is definitely a skew towards technology companies. And the expectation is very much a concentration of businesses. We're looking at Amazon now they're providing all sorts of services from credit lines to a grocery to all sorts of things and deliver at your doorstep. How many. So we will see probably a concentration of these large businesses. And the expenses of others. And what does that mean that in terms of tax collection tax base policy. And also digital taxation. You know, I think. So one of the, I mean, there's two separate things I think that are interesting to talk about one is. Having a lot more holistic view and real time view of the economy. Which these new systems can do. So like for instance, the things that we did with fidelity investment and with into it. Or blockchain systems that gave more unified views to the customer to the citizen of what was going on but also allowed much more unified management of trends like investment trends and tax trends. By these major organizations. So there's this sort of linking the silos and allowing things to flow digitally between them will allow you to adapt to these things. And decide what to do. The second thing is is that, you know, all of our taxes tend to be based on where the service or the labor was performed. So they're geographically located but of course digital things aren't that way. And this is one of the major challenges is that the people who are making or growing dramatically are people who are providing digital services like Amazon and so forth. And the question is how should they be taxed. And I think that that requires a sort of basic rethinking of tax policy. Because the whole point of taxes to provide support for the externalities outside of the economy. So education, health care infrastructure, things that support the economy, but are not formally part of the economy. And what the digital things are doing is is breaking that connection between local infrastructure and local business. It's not a local infrastructure, but it's done in Seattle. And digital things do allow you to be able to allocate tax correctly. And in fact, VAT is a very good step in that direction. So one can imagine that there is a new generation of VAT, which is called something like local reinvestment tax, which I think might be more popular than VAT. Which takes the value added by the digital things and returns a share of that to support the local infrastructure. This is a thing I think I'm very excited about because we have this fundamental disconnect now between how taxes are assessed. They're based on the sort of geography far too much. And they need to actually talk about not where the thing is made, but what is the infrastructure we need to pay for? And how does that infrastructure support the economy? So I hope that was clear. It's a very different way to think about taxes. But I think we're going to have to challenge how do we tax these digital services, which are not here, they're there. But yet they need to support the schools and the health care and things like that locally. I think it's crystal clear. Thank you, Sandy. I think it's a good encouragement and I hope we will talk more later. I just received, I see I have one question. And then I think if there are no more questions, I'll push our panel. But Tara, there is a question for KRA basically and one of the participants in the audience like to comment KRA for embracing the online tax returns. But they're also asking what is control can control be an issue? And for example, what is down to authenticate no natures? Are taxpayers asked to submit receipts online as evidence? So I think it's a bit of a question related to tax avoidance. And so maybe you can also share with us what is KRA thinking while they are embracing the online tax return, where you say the risks are and also how you've organized yourself to address the risk and now to respond to the risks. Thank you, Kira. And thank you, the person giving the question. KRA has been running an online tax system, both for the income tax, VAT, excess tax, all allows online filing and online authentication. Part of the system includes registration, which would then link to the original database if it's personal registration. If, for example, it's registration of company, then the system uploads the original registration details as part of validation from the registrar of companies. The same type of individuals from the registrar of persons, births and deaths. So that then validates the authenticity of the person registering for the tax. Additionally, once the transactions are done, the taxpayer is allowed by virtue of the system is allowed to upload a ledger. The particular transactions, if, for example, it's a payroll, then each and every of the employee with the P and ID number, personal identification number is linked to the salary and all the exemptions and all the other benefits. And the total is given as a total payable by the company. So we actually do individual tax ledger reconciliation. For the small transaction, which I think the question I had in mind is the VAT, where the transactions are done for the whole month, we have 20th of subsequent month, our filing dates. So all the transactions done in the previous month up to the last day of the month is submitted online through the system. However, we've been having a system called electronic tax register, which does not meet the requirements of some of the country's ledger, which is presented as the transaction is happening. However, KRA is developing a system that will then allow the taxpayer, as the transaction is done, the same transaction is submitted to our system, which will then give us by date, by time, by minute and by second, the transaction as it happens. So that is what we are doing. And it's part of the effect of the COVID-19 because we were intending to launch the program. It is still on course. KRA is going to implement the same program that will then have instant transmission of data to our database. Thank you. Thank you, Tara. So we have very few minutes. I'd like to give you all a moment, one minute of the last pitch if you want to make it. And I'd like to start from Kate. What is your last message for audience today and for this panel? One minute each. You know, I would ask all tax administrations to embrace technology. I think it is the way forward. And, you know, in this digital world that we live in, we need to serve the taxpayers and the companies that are employing the taxpayers. And, you know, we're all together in the same ecosystem. So having more state of the art being more digitally enabled would be super helpful. Thank you. Raul, a word from you. Well, two key messages very quickly. First of all, as I mentioned during my first intervention, the taxation of digital economy is very relevant and we have to revamp the tax system. And we have to think of a different way to touch digital activities, as it has been also said. We need to think about the defining traits and these ratting aspects of digital business models. The second message is that, of course, technology is the future, but we have different levels of capacity and what important thing is when you factor in political economy elements. For example, in some countries we have seen a lot of resistance to change to adopt technologies because of corruption issues. So this is something that we need to incorporate into our programs. I stop here. Thank you, Raul. Sandy. I think that at the highest level, it's clear that we have a great number of challenges coming at us and that generically the only way to address those challenges is through innovation. One of the things I think we should do, which is a little different than people have done in the past, is experiment more. So you might think about instead of setting up a system for the whole country at a time, do it for a city or two and see how it works first. Because you could be pleasantly surprised or you could decide that there's some real problems. That much more experimental, innovative mindset where you're trying out new solutions rather than proglomating final solutions is, I think, an important aspect of all this. Thank you. And Tara, your last words of wisdom. Thank you, Tara. And Karen is grateful to be part of the Prosperity Collaborative Framework and Karen is happy to share its experiences through this COVID-19. I joined also other panelists in embracing technology is the only solution that is going to have a collection of taxes. It's going to be unlikely that we're going to rely on debt as every country is affected through this COVID-19. So domestic revenue mobilization is key for every country and carry is aware and carry is alive to the fact that domestic revenue mobilization is part of our agenda. Digital economy is also the high table for every country. We are aware that there's a discussion both at the United Nations level and the OECD level, the taxation of digital economy through the unified and of course unified and unilateral methods. I would rather I'm asking that World Bank should also be part of this collaborative framework should be part of this discussion. Since it's going to be the next discussions global. Thank you very much. Thank you all very much. I just want to reassure everybody that World Bank is very much part of this discussion and we are really very engaging in this collaborative. I want to thank you because I'm thinking what we've learned today it's in a way I think we've been encouraged to think beyond outside the box be much more agile. And I think also try and I think the World Bank can help in this regard is to really leverage experiences globally. And while Sandy was talking about experimentation, there are already a lot of countries that are experimenting because there are different levels. There are great opportunities to do what we call in our dirt on South side initiative as well. And but I want to thank you. You're a fantastic panel. And now I will hand over to Tomica Tillerman who's going to chair the next panel. I big round of applause to all of you and thank you very much. Well, thank you chair for that very kind introduction our gratitude to the panelists an incredible array of insights that we've all been fortunate to be privy to this morning. And also my thanks to our incredible partners at the World Bank, EY MIT and the Boston global forum. It's a real pleasure and a privilege to collaborate with all of you in this effort. If you believe all of our wonderful homes, the former justice of the US Supreme Court who said the taxes or the price we pay for living in a civilized society. Then this is a conversation that goes to the very core of our civilization and frankly at a time when the foundations of that civilization are looking a little bit shaky. It's tough to overestimate and overstate the magnitude and the criticality of the issues that we're going to be talking about today as I welcome our next panel. I want you to welcome them as folks who are literally in the trenches fighting the fight to defend our civilization. They are doing the hard work necessary to ensure that our institutions have the resources they need to continue providing all of us with the services and the rule of law and the institutional oversight. That is necessary in order for our nations and civilizations to function properly. So this is immensely important work and we could not have better people with us to help us move this conversation forward. I'm going to start by welcoming Jackie Wright, the Chief Digital Officer from Microsoft and the former head over all digital strategy at HMRC, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, which is the tax authority for the British government. Her Excellency, Siri Che, Assistant Governor of the National Bank of Cambodia spearheading some incredibly innovative efforts in that country and we'll hear about those in greater detail. Jeffrey Cooper, who is now with the SAS Institute, previously he was executive director of IRS criminal investigations. So he has seen a thing or two in his day. We're eager to get his insights and that of course Jeff Saviano of EY's Global Tax Innovation Center, their leader for global tax innovation, a dear friend and an incredible champion on these issues. I am going to begin Jeff with you if you're amenable. You have played a key role in standing up the prosperity collaborative and for all those that are listening today and we want to reiterate the point made in the last panel. We want to hear from those that are participating virtually. Please tweet your questions with the hashtag, hashtag prosperity collaborative or send them to digi at newamerica.org. But Jeff, in standing up the prosperity collaborative, you recognize that we needed a new type of coalition to solve these challenges. Tell us a little bit about your thinking in creating the prosperity collaborative. What are you trying to accomplish and why is it so important right now in a world that is struggling to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. Thank you. Appreciate the introduction and really am honored and excited to participate today as a founding member of the prosperity collaborative. You're working with our collaborators and obviously to Micah including you working very closely with you and all of our collaboration partners to solve complex tax problems in the world. Our vision we have such a high vision for the collaborative is to have great impact want to be transformational. We want to transform fiscal and tax systems with innovative technology. What is important to us came up with this idea we had the idea for the collaborative before there was any hint of the pandemic that we're in, but frankly we're finding that the purpose of the collaborative is even more relevant today as we're all struggling. And the solutions emerge from the covert 19 lockdowns. So at the heart of it, we believe we need more effective digital solutions. intelligence and blockchain and data scientists that have been focused on really big problems in the world across sectors like healthcare and transportation but we believe that now is the time for tax and fiscal systems. We have a great minds of those new advanced technologies to solve these tax problems. The idea of a workshop we held that at MIT with the founding members just about a year ago, and I want to go back to a point that Marcello raised at the opening to Micah. One of the purposes to achieve this collective intelligence and we love that phrase great people enabled by great technology. It's really important that no single institution have on the problem solving. We need a multi-discipline multidisciplinary effort. I think there are sectors in civil society all coming together. Kate said this in the last panel as well to solve those big tax problems. So we, we expect the collaborative to get the very heart of setting new standards. We have a, I'll finish this on this point to Micah that we've got such a great vision, executing on this great vision, and we're really looking forward to collaborating with not only our enormous amount of tax evasion and, you know, efforts throughout your career to try to get around taxes. What trees missing by virtue of having what are in too many cases, pretty imperfect antiquated systems that are responsible for public revenue and public finance. First, thank you for the opportunity to participate on this distinguished panel. And to answer your question, though, really, I think it's an opportunity for a whole of government approach. I've been, I spent 30 years with internal revenue service fighting crime on the civil and criminal side of the house, now embracing technology with SAS and helping countries around the world to really address some of their problems. And really, the data tells the story is something that that I've always said. And the question is what what story does it tell. Economic crime, though, is the the largest crime in the world. OECD had estimated it in 2016 to be around $3.1 trillion. I would suspect that that definitely has increased on what what challenges that that are out there is with data. Data is something that that even now as we look at the COVID in a response to COVID, it's just more data. It used to be that cash is king. Well, that's that's pretty changed in this new new way that we live this new normal. But analyzing that data is critical because data without analytics is really value not yet realized. So around the world, some countries are are are asking SAS and other technology leaders for help, because now this new norm is something that they're struggling with. Economic forecasting. Well, what's the impact of this on revenue on a country? And how do they how do they now relate to the taxpayers? What's that new taxpayer behavior is going to be? Do you send out letters to taxpayers to get a response? What is the collection aspect going to be workforce analytics? Some of the some of the comments on the last panel kind of talked about the digital economy, but now how do you tax the digital economy? Last year, I wrote a blog and I was looking to 2019 and looking at some of the international tax trends and for noncompliance. And it's funny because transfer pricing was really high high on that list. I know one of the other panel was kind of talked about transfer pricing and some of the multinational corporations and some of the what out just abuses that are out there. But now with COVID and stimulus. Well, that just becomes exacerbated even more. But those are some of the things that that we're looking at their fraud though. So as we talk about stimulus payments around the world, what type of oversight is it going to be there? So companies now really in governments really have to look at how to look at the fraud as it relates to that. What is that going to look like? How do you identify some of these bad bad actors out there? Because out of crisis comes opportunity, but that same opportunity is for the fraudsters as well in government really have to work together to address that. So this brings up a number of really important points and Jackie, I want you to help us out on this. You and I were having a conversation a few days ago. And one of the key themes we talked about was something Jeffrey just raised, which is data and how data can be used to solve these tough challenges around tax and public finance. Tell us what you've seen that has worked and also what you see on the horizon that could be helpful. You and I, for example, discussed some new models of data sharing where you put the citizen at the center of your data architecture and have the citizen share data back and forth across agencies. And in doing so, you can overcome a lot of the traditional limitations that have been put in place on interagency data sharing. So there's some innovative models emerging. What have you seen that has worked and what are you seeing that could work in the future? Thank you for that Tomica. Now one of the things that, you know, the previous panelists discussed was this convergence of the digital economy and citizen services. And so when you think about, you know, I'd like to separate developed from developing countries because what we're seeing is that in the developing countries, they are thinking about where it is. Where they are and what they're doing right now. The developed countries have a history. They have a legacy and they have systems that have yet to be realizing the potential of this new digital economy. So when you look at all of the technologies that are going on around, the central part of that is around the identity of the citizen, capturing the services at the point of transaction. And so in order to do that, you have to really think about an identity of a citizen. And so in countries such as Estonia, where, you know, small country, but the ability to federate really quickly. They have digital identity. There are concepts that are coming out with innovative people and technologies around owning the data yourself. So you yourself have an identity. You have what's called kind of like a digital cabinet where you own your information and that information is shared when needed, needed for the point of services. Later at the heart of that is then federated across to do things such as looking at the economic levers, the levers around how are we affecting and changing the digital nature of what we're doing from an economy perspective. And then there's the AI and machine learning and deep learning around capturing fraud and compliance. What we need to think about and what's actually happening is Jeffery's point about cash is king and now it's digital. We're moving up the chain in terms of looking at fraud and identifying fraud earlier on in the transactional processing end to end. These are the things that we're starting to see when you think about the digital citizen services. The other thing we think we're seeing is the nature of using your device capturing real time and using chatbots to really anticipate what a customer needs. What a citizen needs, how you interact with them and really anticipating the services required to mitigate fraud to improve the ability to capture the revenue. We've been really on the back end to look at the end to end services of how you deliver those services more effectively. Fantastic. Well, you raised one side of this equation, which is how these systems are starting to be adopted in the global North Estonia as a country that we benchmark a lot they have incredible systems and it's inspiring to see what they've done. You are at some level on the other side of this equation, you know you're coming from a country that has a very long history of adversity Cambodia has had some profound challenges, and yet you are creating new digital infrastructure that in many cases is leapfrogging what exists in the global world. Tell us what that process entails and what are some of the lessons you're learning along the way, and specifically I'm sure everyone watching would love to hear more about your work on digital payments and how that's impacting tax and your ability to collect revenue. Thank you to Mike for inviting me to come in with no expertise in technology and no expertise in tax whatsoever. Thank you for taking us all look bad so. I'm listening to the previous sessions, mentioning about you know you just have to try and test and see how it goes so when at the National Bank of Cambodia which is the country central bank we implemented our mobile payment system, introduced mobile payment system, regulations and financial aid, etc. We didn't have in mind that we're going to solve the tax issue, or the governance issues, it was purely for financial inclusions and eventually as we go, we discovered the power it could have on on on tax collection so I think one of the lessons that we've learned is creating and enabling regulatory framework. That is very important because you could look at. I mean, a lot of the times when I mean that this is a sort of a personal experience that we often when we hear about technology and we're not a technologies ourselves we tend to sort of be worried and frightened by anything you and I think here at the bank we adopt this approach that let's try and see what work and that's how we adopt these blockchain technology, the use of blockchain technology in our payment system as one of the first in the world. So, an enabling environment for innovations is very important. So when we promote our mobile payment services. We didn't realize that our tax department has been also benefiting from it so initially was purely for people in the remote area to be able to access to formal financial services, but the tax department decided to use that as well to collect a tax payment from the people and since that introductions we've seen tax collection improve tremendously now it's not of course purely because of this, but in a way it has helped people feel more. First is there's the ease of paying tax second it's the, the trust as well in paying tax because now I pay tax I know it goes directly to an account and not somebody collecting cash for me and probably you know you've got some leakages in between. And then we also look at the interoperability of our system how can we help, for instance, everyone who have a bank account in one bank to be able to pay tax regardless of you know what bank what service provider you're using. So that's that's something that we think it's it's important in term of, you know, introducing new technology in this. Fantastic. So, picking up on some of the themes that Siri just mentioned a moment ago, Jeff, I want you to come back in and help us Siri raised blockchain as one of the tools that they are utilizing in Cambodia and seeing some really powerful results. As it's implemented, you are also a leader in this space. Tell us how you are starting to fuse blockchain and AI to build platforms that can have a transformational impact when it comes to the work of revenue authorities around the world. Sure. That very point of this convergence we see a convergence with artificial intelligence and the comments that were made by the panelists on the importance of data were so spot on systems and blockchain and finding new utility for data is of the highest importance to us that was the most accessible of our advanced technology lab at EY that we formed for solving tax problems is one of convergence. We believe that there are too many, our intelligence labs that are separate from a blockchain lab which is separate from data analytics and we think that bringing them together makes a lot of makes a lot of sense. I want to go back to some points that were raised by Jeffrey. The utility of data one of the areas that we've been studying quite a bit is this utility privacy dichotomy. The relationship between utility of data and necessary privacy principles has been one of a trade off. The more sensitive the data is, then the higher the threshold for privacy and security, but the utility of using that data is actually quite low. Lowly aggregating data to inform complex tax problem solving, and we think that that's going to change and I think this is a really important development in the world. We have new computational methods. Give you an example from Sandy Pentland's lab and our last panel connection science at MIT, they've devised a theory called open algorithm theory with a query data and return answers to those queries without the multiple risky transfers of that data. I think that new computational methods like this will be a real game changer in this utility privacy dichotomy. We think that what the near future will hold is that you can have highly sensitive data adhere to the strictest security standards and privacy thresholds and also get high utility from that data and that's something that I think is one of the more important areas that the collaborative will address. Your question is on blockchain and in why in particular that is important to us. If you believe in the Gartner hype cycle of technology where this initial rising ascent of an interest in a new technology so it reaches a certain hype at the very very peak of a mountain and almost inevitably it's it's followed by a decline in expectations. As you climb the mountain of interest in a new technology. Sometimes there's a lot of hype, and you'll come down the other side and ultimately you'll reach the bottom which some call the trough of disillusionment. Blockchain has just it is in the process now of emerging from this trough of disillusion. I think we're about right now ready because of the great work in countries like Cambodia and others to start climbing that a sense of reasonable expectations and utility from a great technology like blockchain. I'll pause on that. Mike I wonder if the hype cycle you believe is is is relevant to how we look at blockchain. Absolutely and I think we are seeing it play out in real time before our eyes on this front and you know that provides a great backdrop for turning to Jeffrey Jeffrey when you were pursuing cases at the IRS. What are the tools that you wish you had had access to are there are there things that could have helped you you know we've heard some really intriguing suggestions from Siri from Jackie from Jeff. What are the things that could have helped in your work and you know by extension. What do you see on the horizon that might fill those gaps going forward. Great. Great. Thank you. As far as some of the things that I that I saw as a special agent that I needed that I thought that would need to help me to further the investigation. One of the one of the things I would always say is that of course the data tells the story but IRS criminal investigation we're really good at following the money. One of the things but following the money by definition means that you are a step behind. I always wanted to know where the money was going. As we did some of the cases breach in the corporate structure in Swiss Switzerland and some of the banks there looking to see where that that money went. But also though embracing really the whole of government approach. One frustration that I used to have is that even within the United States they were different government agencies that had data that was relevant to tax evasion of money laundering. But because of like you said because of privacy and different laws and rules and regulations within the United States. Sometimes it was really difficult to get information from from other agencies and to be able to to utilize it in real time. So I think that there's an opportunity to to have this whole of government approach where as for the IRS for instance. So as you look at the stimulus payments now and the potential fraud that's going to be there where you have the small business association. Well they have data social security office has data internal revenue service has data Bureau physical affairs and all the other government agencies so as an investigator to be able to to have a unified platform where you can see across those agencies and be able to to utilize that data. But on an international level, there are certain organizations, the J5 and other organizations that we work together to tackle common problems to come up with some some type of common solutions, but as far as technology on the on the forefront. I think that the fraud solutions that that look at beneficial ownership and corporate security is definitely something that needs to be enhanced. I'm even the United States in some circles are considered a tax haven so developing solutions that really address that particular area. Also that the transfer pricing the base erosion looking at cloud migration alright for for instance putting things in the cloud and bringing the the math to the data, so to speak. Because I guess we all keep talking about data. The data does not go away and data without analytics is just value not yet realized. And then the other thing though with this data as you build these models is you have to be able to deploy them and use them. Because a lot of countries don't don't use it they'll they'll build a really good model. Well, and that's just becomes to me a good science project. If you don't if you can't utilize it and have some output there. So some of the things that that I see. So Jackie, let's zoom back on the point that Jeffrey just raised because I think it's absolutely essential I'm sure you experienced this. The revenue revenue customs when you were there and I'm sure you're seeing this at Microsoft as well. You can have perfect technology you can have a beautiful beautiful technical system. But unless you deal with the human dimensions of these platforms, you're not going to get the results you want and what we find often in our work is that technology is actually the easy part of this equation. People are hard people are complicated. What are some of the non technical things that revenue authorities should be thinking about as they try to implement better systems and and do you have advice and best practices that you can share. Both from your time with the UK government and at Microsoft that will help get us to better outcomes, even when the technology is working exactly the way it should. What are things that can go right and go wrong when you're dealing with people. Absolutely. I mean, it first starts and you're right. You're absolutely right. Technology is only as good as the ability to adopt to learn and consume the services. And so the at the heart of it, it's about thinking about the role of the tax authority. That's the core. And when you think about the tax authority and Alex spoke about that in the previous panel about the role of tax of the tax authority is to fund public services and to provide services. And so when you think about that, you think about the role that your data needs to play in terms of providing services, providing insight, providing the compliance, the payment, all of those that you think about it differently. You also have to understand how well people understand technology. And in an organization such as HMRC where the average tenure, maybe about 30 years, the ability to adopt and use the technology services are very limited. So you have to provide ongoing training, ongoing adoption of the services, these cloud services, people don't know how to use them. People don't know how to use basic services. And so training is core to that. So culturally change management. Let's think about change management in a whole new way in terms of how a tax authority needs to think about its services. We got a great question from the audience that I think provides a good segue to Siri. The question that came in was, can you provide advice for tax administrations and low income countries where the operations are barely digitized at all? And Siri, you and I have talked about the issue of sequencing in the past and how crucial it is to get the right technologies deployed in the right order. What's your counsel to those in countries that are starting from a low threshold of digitization and specifically how should they think through the sequencing of technologies to ensure that they're getting the best possible outcomes? So before I touch on the sequencing, I want just to touch on what you've asked Jackie before on the technology versus the human dimensions. And I think what is also relevant is, I think the technology part is the easiest to solve, right? But the most difficult is of course human political and regulatory dimension. And I do see it this way. I mean, I'm a bank regulator versus the tax department. And we do have different views in certain ways. I mean, we protect the depositors' privacies, but at the same time, you know, the tax department would also like to see everything about, you know, who is not paying tax. And this is the whole, I mean, we can debate on this forever. But I think it's very important that we get this clear in that there's a really strong political will to do that. And that's also go to the second questions that you asked me about. I mean, I don't have any advice, but I think what is very important is the willingness, the political will to do that. Technology is only one small thing to tackle. And also to, I think the other thing is to how do you get people to want to pay tax, which is a very interesting question. How do you get people to one? Nobody wants to pay tax. But how do you make it in a way fun to pay tax, right? This is also an important, I think that what I've learned from how our tax department here has been trying to convince people to go on their mobile application and it make it so sort of trendy, so fashionable that I take my phone and I push this button and taxes paid and everyone is happy. And this is really, so it's communication as well. So, I mean, there's a whole lot of dimension to it. And I think, really, I think technology is the last part. And the next thing is also in terms of sequencing is that when I mean this is again from personal experience when when our tax department approached us. And this is bearing in mind that only 50% of the population have access to formal financial services. And that's the, even though mobile money or money is popular, it has not been as widespread as we wish it to be. So when the tax department approaches and say, well, we want information on those who receive payment through electronic means. So, with a car, with a QR, whether whatever that is. So that will be able to better tax them. And immediately my reaction that was about, you know, four or five years ago my reaction was that I'm glad to hear that I'm willing to help you, but I'm not going to do it now. And the reason is because when, when you try to adopt this people usually get very suspicious on what you're, you know, and if I haven't touched on electronic payment before I'm a merchant and I'm, you know, a shop. And suddenly I'm told at the moment I put in a POS machine or I put a QR code to collect my payment. The tax guide will come and chase after me. Immediately my reaction. Not a very, not a very attractive proposition. No, I'll just stick to cash. So I was actually trying to convince them that how about we wait until the adoptions is more sort of grain. In a way, but it's simply it's just get them addicted to, to these mobile payment to the, the ease of it. And then you come in the tax element to it. And that would be, you know, much easier, because now they're hooked into it. It will be very difficult for them to pull out. And that's that sequencing is very important, particularly in a developing country when you are used to a cash economy and it doesn't really matters to most of these people because the moment I mean what is really scared here for a lot of the merchant man. I mean, I've got friends who own restaurants and so on. And what really scared them is that they would ask me if I put a POS machine with the tax department know how much I'm making a day. Right. And then I say them what technically, yes. And, but so, yeah, so, so this time, this kind of sequencing is actually very important. I love that it's both a matter of technical sequencing, but also bringing people along with these different solutions. And maybe your gamification idea can feature in that. How do you I think of the incredible boosts in engagement that come when certain unnamed social platforms will inject confetti into the posting process. You know, if you post congratulations, you get a little burst of confetti and it turns out that people are radically more likely to post if there's a little boost to confetti when they are putting something on social media. Maybe we need to be looking at the tax equivalent of confetti cannons digital confetti cannons for those that file their taxes. Jeff, turning to you for a moment, whether it's confetti cannons or other more more mundane forms of technology. We have really had a great ongoing discussion and the prosperity collaborative about the use of digital public goods, which is a new concept to provide solutions around the world, but especially in the global south. When it comes to addressing some of these issues. Can you talk with us a bit about what is a digital public good and why it's an intriguing proposition for those that are looking to address some of the challenges confronting revenue authorities relating to tax. Sure. First, that's the first I've ever heard tax and confetti in the same, the same utterance so up to give us the last time we're getting crazy here. Let's talk about digital public goods and this question of the governance of technology and you and I, as we had a great discussion earlier this year in Davos alongside the World Economic Forum on these issues where you created a panel there as well talking about technology governance and and the benefits of the world of creating a digital public good, a digital public good. By that phrase we mean to create. Once for use by many. One of the issues that we're seeing is a stark problem in the world is that we don't have many global institutions to govern what is increasingly becoming multi stakeholder technology. Just the past few years we've seen explode in the world, especially in the tax world and as we talked about earlier from we heard from Siri and others on the use of blockchain blockchain by definition right is multi stakeholder that it seems almost rare now to develop a technology system for a single user. We think that trend is only going to increase. These governance models become really important for a couple of reasons that number one there's full transparency about what is being built and to ensure that this trust and level of participation across multiple stakeholders that have an interest in the technology. Decision making process to incorporate all of the unique wants and needs and incentives by those stakeholders. Of course, making sure that the right ethical boundaries data security and data privacy are all upheld. And I think it's important because when we look to how do you create digital public goods by definition. For tax purposes, because there's at least two sides of that equation your citizen taxpayers and tax administrations and how do you build technology and public goods to use by those multiple stakeholders. We don't have many global institutions to govern that. We're hoping that the prosperity collaborative could help fill a gap there and that has been a real barrier to adopting of these systems and and look to get the thoughts from you and others on that that I think it's an important, important gap in the world that hopefully we can help fill. So Jeffrey, help us out on this a little bit because this is a new concept for a lot of folks when you are trying to address issues of fraud when you're trying to address abuses within the tax system. It is often really complex and expensive for governments to build their own solutions from the ground up. I do believe that there's an opportunity for more collaboration when it comes to the creation of these types of solutions. Can we get different jurisdictions feeding ideas into a common pool with the expectation that everyone is going to have to do some customizing. At the end of the day, governments are different circumstances are different. So you do have to do some optimization to meet local needs. But can we have a, I think a more cost effective approach to creating some of the underlying infrastructure, but it's going to help provide greater accountability in these systems. Yes, definitely. I think that we could we can do that from the standpoint of of basically where we're only as strong as wherever that weakest link is, right? And it's something that that I've approached this this methodology from my dealings with them international from the standpoint as we look at money laundering and any other financial crime. Well, if all the let's say anti money laundering or the tax rules are not strong based, then the end of the bad guy or perpetrator will go and take advantage of wherever underdeveloped country or wherever country that is. But as you talk about the technology that needs to be there and we talk about the public good. I think there's an opportunity to have a base level. Let's say an entry, so to speak, where you have a tax solution that a large, a large, a large country could use and also underdeveloped country can use from the standpoint it could be it could be a web based type solution. And then and then data is basically fed into that for for tax administration purposes, though, but and then also I think there's an opportunity for a public part, public private partnership where the public sector is working with the private sector to say, All right, what do you need? We will we will help you to design it. We will bring an industry experts that worked in the tax domain and also that that understands technology. But so I think that there's an opportunity for the public good to have a base level that all countries could utilize because until you do that what happens and as we all know that you have the profit shifting. You have the people taking advantage of those other other underdeveloped countries there. But if I can just add to to paying taxes and being happy about paying taxes. Oh, I wanted to comment on series point there. One of the things that I was thinking of is that I think each taxpayer should have a different experience based on their tax situation, so to speak. And when I say that, I mean that if I go to a revenue authority to their website based on my experience with them, if let's say I file paper and I really they really want me to be electronic. Well, maybe my experience is different than a person that hasn't paid when they go to the to the particular website. And also I think there's an opportunity to and as an 100 I really wanted this is to have the robotic process automation to repeat some of those steps that so I would not have to do it. And I think and everybody has to pay their fair share though. That's the thing that's that is huge for people to be happy. No one's happy if they know that a mega multinational corporation that you know makes 100 billion dollars is paying zero taxes or somebody down the street. They want to make sure that we're all in this together and we're all going to pay in the in the rules. You know, one of my pet aspirations for a while has been that we need to build in rewards to our tax payment system. So I would love to see, you know, once a year when somebody pays their taxes. You know, we have an overpass named after them. And yeah, we have some some different systems to make it a little bit more exciting to see what's going to happen when you submit that filing, you know, what's going to come out on on the other side. These are all ideas we can we can ponder on going forward. Jackie, both Jeffrey and Jeff talked a little bit about the opportunities that can exist if we get more jurisdictions working on the same set of challenges. One of the keys to making that happen is standards and Jeff had raised this earlier in the conversation as well. I would love to know from your work on these challenges what you've seen go right around standards, what could go better on standards. Is there work that should be done in that space that isn't being done. And I ask this in part because it's one of the issues we've been thinking about a lot in the context of the prosperity collaborative and we'd love your advice on whether it's an area we can pursue going forward. And we can use the current crisis as an example of globalization cooperation that should exist and what goes wrong if it doesn't. The pandemic itself has really resonated and really shown us exactly what can go wrong. And so when you think about the standards, this collaboration between public and private means that those who are expert in their field can bring the requisite skills to help collectively solve the problem. And what we've seen, I mean, I'll use the example of data sharing as a prime example here. We're talking about delighting a citizen, but understanding that when you share the data, what can actually go wrong with understanding and exploiting someone's information. So we do need to institute standards that say these are the rules of engagement. If we are sharing for the for compliance for fraud for anti money laundering. These are the things you can and cannot do relative to the data. How do you anonymize the data and some of the things that I think we haven't seen where government really steps up to the plate and says, okay, across globally across the world. These are the things we need to do to enable the world to operate better as we think about taxes. And again, you know, this positive and negative view of taxes. Let's not forget. This is about providing services for a society for a global world. And if we use it in the right way, we will get the right outcomes. You, I think make a fascinating and critical point by situating this in the context of the pandemic, because what we are seeing at, you know, the most painful level imaginable, both in terms of the cost and the financial fall out, but more critically the cost and lives is a failure of investment in global public goods. We didn't do a good job building the infrastructure that we needed to over the last few decades to respond to something like this. And so right now we are paying an almost incalculable price as a result of that failure to invest and create the resource that is necessary to solve this set of challenges. And when you think about the role of the tax authority, the data that the tax authority has can provide insight in terms of the economic levers that we need to use policies that need to be made to help the economy restart, those, those are things that no other authority can do. And so why are we not using that and why government authorities not collaborating together to look at that in a way for good. And I think, you know, just point about this digital, this social good is pivotal in this new world. After the session that Jeff and I did in Davos, Siri, I was talking with the CEO of one of the technical partners that's working with you on your work in Cambodia. And they're helping on the blockchain side of the equation to stand up your digital payment system. Digital payments are obviously one crucial element of infrastructure that can be helpful in creating a more accountable, fair taxation regime. Are there other pieces of digital infrastructure that you would highlight again coming at this as somebody from a global South country that is digitizing quite rapidly that would be helpful in your work. Are there things that, you know, to Jackie's point, we should be mobilizing around to get more countries, more governments, building solutions that can have broad application across many different jurisdictions. Yeah, just now you were mentioning things about company and tax in the same sentence and then Jackie was also mentioning things about, you know, how much data sharing is important. I mean, particularly in this pandemic time, you see a lot of people are cash trapped. They're not able to access proper financing during this period. And this is really bad for the economy. One way we could do this sharing, I mean, tax in competitive, if you're paying your tax on time, this information should also help you into your credit scoring, for instance, to be able to better access financing from bank. How you pay your tax etc should, I mean, there is so many things that we can use from the data that we collect from tax payment to help businesses and individual property access to finance and vice versa. So this is something I can see that there needs a collaboration between all all stakeholders within the government at least and possibly others, but at least within the government to make that happen. That is a great point to make and a couple of housekeeping notes as we are nearing the end of our time. The first is we want to thank all those that have submitted questions online. We have a number still coming in, we're going to try to get to as many as we can. All of the questions that are submitted online to digi at new america.org or via Twitter using the hashtag. Prosperity collaborative will be fed into the process that we use to do our after action write up and that will be shared on on our blog and others. So we encourage you to please send in your thoughts, send in your comments. We will get those to the right folks. Second, as part of our last round of questions. I want to ask all of you by the power vested in me for purposes of this conversation. I'm going to designate each of you the respective kings and queens of global taxation for the day. And I want to ask you what you would do with that power. What are the. Systems you would create what are the solutions you would implement. We've been encouraged in the conversations that we've started having with an array of multilateral organizations be at the open government partnership or the community of democracies that are starting to take a real interest in these issues. And there seems to be an opportunity to work in this space. In part because a lot of the red tape that has historically precluded quick action is being cast aside in the context of the crisis. But what are the things that you would do if you had the ability to reshape this ecosystem for a day. And Jeff, I'm going to start with you. Thank you to Micah. This has come up a couple of times on the panel like one of the one of the really intriguing problems that exist in the world is the intergovernmental issue and we touched on a little bit earlier this lack of a global governance model. And just by way of example you look at organizations like the World Trade Organization or WCO where in the global trade dimension you have strong global governance models and as a result there's greater harmony across jurisdictions there's model laws that are adopted by others and and when we look to the promise of innovative technology we don't have those those those global governance models so to answer your question King for a day I would create that global institution first I think it's at the institution level before the bits and bytes of any particular technology. We need global governance we need some existing governing board to step up and say we're going to create standards and principles for AI prediction models for tax or data usage. We don't have that yet and I think it's holding us back. Jeffrey. Okay, yes, if I was King for a day in the tax tax were a while. I think I would have a system where there was a a definitely needs some digital transformation but there was a an open platform to keep for countries to communicate and actually share the data so the infrastructure definitely needs to be in place where you can see the the life cycle from data to discovery to deployment and actually take some measurable results from that but but ultimately though the tax policy though an exchange of information between governments and tax treaties that also has to be changed because you can't do one without the other. The automatic exchange of information I know there are challenges there, even as we look at fact when that was rolled out in the United States and the common reporting standards in the EU, just making sure that it works together but there has to be policy changes or it has to be policy changes first to to to embed it to look at the endgame as you're making policy decisions. How is this information going to be used down the road with the all the countries that are involved. Fantastic. Jackie, your thoughts on this Queen for a day. Queen for a day and you know Jeff really stole my idea but the basis for that for me would be Davos nowhere else. Do I have all these great leaders where I can hold them to account, create a charter and give actions. So my queen for a day is the next time in Davos, I would like to stand up there and hold all these leaders to account in terms of digital for good. What are we going to do to change the world in the next five years. For better or worse, we have a long history of engagement at Davos on these issues. Jeff, we're going to have to conspire with Jackie on that because we are earlier this week actually, or at the end of last week we announced the City of Principles in partnership with our friends at the World Economic Forum, which address a number of key questions around data and data privacy and citizen and consumer ownership of data that are really core to some of the questions we've explored today. And I love the idea of doing something similar when it comes to tax and public revenue. I think that's a brilliant idea. So we have our homework for this conversation. Siri, queen for a day. For a day, I would do everything the rest of the panelists mentioned, but in addition to digitization is very important, but in addition to that, I wish there is a way that could be, I mean, as a taxpayer, I want to see where my money is going to. And that is, we haven't really touched on that. We're talking about how we better collect tax, but we've never talked about, you know, how do we show to the taxpayer what has been done with their money. And I think that that is very important. If you want people to pay their due, you have to tell them what they're doing with that. That's fantastic. We have very few more minutes and Jack. I'm going to ask you for your help in squeezing in an answer to one more question. We have such wonderful questions that have come in. This one's from Shafiq Barbar at MIT. And I think it's going to be relevant for a whole lot of people listening and makes for a good point, a good place to conclude our conversation. And Shafiq asks, how do we get other partners and specifically innovative startups, those that may not have the infrastructure of an EY or a Microsoft to work with government engaged in this space? Because there is a perception rightly or wrongly, but too often I fear it's correct that it's not easy dealing with government on these issues. It's not easy to create solutions and innovative technologies that can resolve these challenges. You've seen this play out on both sides. What's your advice to those that want to help create solutions, but are feeling a little bit daunted by the prospect of working to the public sector. Yeah, I think that's a really excellent point. And I think there are two things that one, we need to do a better job of, but to also be start startups and small businesses can really hold us to account in terms of that. The partnerships that government has with large scale technology organizations such as ourselves as Microsoft hinges on the ability to include people from the entire ecosystem. So, so there's two things here. There's one policy needs to be instituted in government to ensure that everyone can play, whether it be large corporation or small corporations. Technology firms such as Microsoft are utilizing small startups and other businesses to become part of these consortia and you should start to, you will, you see that where it plays everywhere. I think one of the things we could do a better job of is really demanding at the table when government is really thinking about launching a new program and you service. Do we have enough people in the ecosystem, large and small to be able to do that. And I think both large corporations and the public should be requiring this to say that everyone can play. That would be my, my, my recommendation. Fantastic. Well, on that note, let me thank our extraordinary panelists, Siri, Jackie, Jeffrey and Jeff. You guys give tax a good name. It's been a pleasure thinking with you today. Let me emphasize that this is the beginning, not the end of a longer conversation on these issues. The prosperity collaborative is excited to engage not only with the panelists here today, but also with those of you participating virtually as we work to address these challenges going forward. And the timing could not be more crucial. This conversation will be made available as a recording following conclusion of the session. We hope that those of you who are watching will share it again continue to send us comments they will feed into our work on these issues. And our thanks to our amazing partners at the World Bank, MIT and the Boston Global Forum for helping us to create this incredible platform along with the Y to address these challenges. Chiarra, I'll hand things back to you and we appreciate your help in orchestrating our conversation today. And I want to thank this, everybody. It's been a very exciting seminar today, extremely informative. I think also energizing. There is a lot of work to do. And I think the prosperity, the collaborative perspective is a great platform to continue this work together. And we're also looking forward to a series of these events. I think we want to expand in this direction. And so I hope I look forward to the next appointment and thank everybody for the participation and for the insight and also for spending time with us in such a difficult moment. And I wish you a good day. Thank you.