Revenue administration implements the system of taxes and charges enacted
by the government to provide funds for the operation of government
programs, seeking to do so at reasonable cost without biases toward certain
taxpayers or types of economic activities. The functions of revenue administration include taxpayer registration and service,tax declaration or assessment,
revenue and taxpayer accounting,delinquency control,audit,enforcement,and
appeal or protest (Ebel and Taliercio 2005; Mikesell 2007a).25 Local taxes have
successfully been administered by local governments acting alone, local
governments working cooperatively, higher-tier governments acting alone,
and higher-tier governments working cooperatively with local governments.26
User charges are,however,usually administered by the government that applies
the charge. The extent to which revenue administration is decentralized
depends on a mix of technical and political considerations. Although local
administration contributes to local control of the revenue program, central
administration can permit advantages of scale and specialized expertise;
the exact balance between the two options depends on the nature of the
particular tax and how it is structured. The guidance that Bahl and Linn
(1992) offer for local government tax policy in developing countries applies
equally to administration of that policy: keep it simple, and focus on revenue
production to the exclusion of other social or economic objectives.