Analysts from Ghanaian Ministry of Finance and Revenue Authority visit IFS, London, for microsimulation training and meetings with HM Treasury and HMRC peers

Analysts from the Ghanaian Ministry of Finance (MoF) and Revenue Authority (GRA) have completed a two week visit to the London offices of the IFS. The main purpose of this visit was the completion of the second round of training on the GHATAX tax and benefit microsimulation model. This model uses household survey and tax administration data from Ghana and is designed to allow analysts to estimate the revenue and distributional effects of existing tax policy and tax policy reforms. The focus of this round of training was familiarisation with new features added to GHATAX and with the process of constructing the input data required by the model. 

During the visit, the IFS, MoF and GRA team also met with officials from HM Treasury and HMRC to share experiences with tax policy costing and microsimulation analysis, as well as broader tax policy issues. It was clear from these meetings that policy-makers in Ghana and the UK face many of the same challenges and that there is scope for lessons and approaches to be shared.