Fiscalis programme

The Fiscalis programme is an EU cooperation programme, aiming to support tax authorities and taxation in order to enhance the functioning of the internal market, to foster the competitiveness of the Union and fair competition in the Union, to protect the financial and economic interests of the Union and its Member States, including protecting those interests from tax fraud, tax evasion and tax avoidance, and to improve tax collection.

The specific objectives of the programme are to support tax policy and the implementation of Union law relating to taxation, to foster cooperation between tax authorities, including exchange of tax information, and to support administrative capacity building including as regards human competency and the development and operation of European electronic systems.

The Fiscalis programme is not per se a technical assistance programme, although the collaborative actions under the programme could contribute to technical assistance. The Fiscalis programme's collaborative or cooperation activities allow for bringing together national tax administration officials of participating countries, by means of:

1. meetings and similar ad-hoc events such as seminars workshops, working/study visits and
2. project-based structured collaboration such as networks, project groups, expert teams, task forces, and monitoring activities.

Collaborative activities are a useful tool to implement the policy objectives and exchange best practices. Both the participating countries and the Commission can initiate such collaborative activities.

The collaborative activities of the Fiscalis programme are implemented via grants allocated to each of the programme participating countries as beneficiaries, on the basis of the Multi Annual Work Programmes (the current one is running from 2021 to end of 2023). The participating countries are responsible to decide which activities they want to initiate and/or engage in according to their priorities. Therefore, the phase at which the Fiscalis programme contributes to technical assistance depends on the subject and the policy priorities of the participating countries and the Commission.

The beneficiaries of the Fiscalis programme are EU Member States’ tax authorities. In addition to EU Member States, the programme is also open to tax authorities from acceding countries, candidate countries, potential candidate countries and partner countries of the European Neighbourhood Policy if certain conditions are fulfilled.

In general, the Fiscalis programme provides a framework for collaborative activities, including project based structured cooperation and one-off events, such as workshops as well as working visits and the presence of short-term experts in a tax administration to address an identified shortcoming or explore future orientations for development in a given taxation area.

A specific example:

• the Fiscalis 2020 Programme supported the Greek tax authorities’ reform with regards to organizational aspects, enhancing the core functions of the tax administration and implementation of tax legislation and procedures. The support consisted of providing a framework for collaboration between experts from other EU Member States and the Greek tax authorities in the form of multiple short-term expert missions, workshops and training.