Data analytics technical assistance: Benefits to Mauritius Revenue Authority

PRETORIA - The African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) together with the Mauritius Revenue Authority (MRA) launched the technical assistance on Data Analytics and Machine Learning. The MRA took a step in improving their tax revenue collection by growing their data analytics capabilities. The technical assistance is aiming at improving the MRA’s tax risk management and detection.

This Technical Assistance (TA) was led by Ms Sameera Khan, ATAF’s Country Programs Manager. 

Speaking during the launch, Ms Khan noted that there’s a growing need for more technical assistance in data analytics. She said tax authorities have over the years collected a lot of data resulting out of automation and process improvements, both internal and external to the revenue authority.

“We have also noticed that revenue agencies equally have challenges in getting the best insights out of the data. Therefore, there is constant need to focus on providing training in data analytics and machine learning,” she said.

Ms Khan said taxpayers have changed the way of doing business, adopting some of these technologies, stressing that tax authorities such as MRA equally want to upscale, collect and interpret as much data as possible to ultimately grow countries.

Over the next three months ATAF will provide technical assistance to MRA in the following:

• Application of Data Analytics & AI in Tax Administration.
• Data sourcing, Data Modelling & Data processing.
• Data Wrangling in Power Query & Power BI.
• Developing Machine Learning Models in Tax Administration - Risk Management
• Data Reporting & Visualization – Power BI Dashboard Development.

The main outcomes of the TA is to: 

• Improve transparency in case selection 
• Enhanced risk management - Adopt appropriate risk models at the taxpayer type level.
• Upskilling the teams to be able to develop robust advanced models to identify, quantify, prioritize risks 
• Integrate data with both external and internal sources to better profile taxpayers for risk as well as improve the turnaround time of risk profiling.
• Improve the visualization of risks into actionable insights for quicker management decisions.

“ATAF is very happy to support MRA in developing their data analytics capabilities and systems aimed at improving the case selection process and ultimately resulting in improved revenue collection.” She said.