Tax administrations are currently facing the challenge of reconciling efficiency in the exercise of their powers with increasingly high standards of transparency, institutional integrity and protection of taxpayers’ rights. In this new paradigm, the legitimacy of administrative action is no longer measured exclusively by its collection capacity or by the degree of digitalization of its processes, but also by the quality of its governance, the objectivity of its decisions and the trust it generates in citizens.

In this context, the Province of Córdoba, as a Subnational State of the Argentine Republic, has been developing for several years a sustained process of institutional strengthening of its Tax Administration, aimed at consolidating a Modern, transparent and citizen-centered management model.

This process has not responded to isolated initiatives, but to a public policy of continuous improvement that has resulted in the progressive incorporation of new principles, rights, obligations and management tools aimed at strengthening legal certainty, the quality of administrative procedures and the relationship between the treasury and taxpayers.

As a result of this process, the Province has promoted various regulatory and institutional reforms aimed at strengthening the transparency of administrative action, consolidating an approach based on taxpayers’ rights and incorporating innovation and digital transformation tools into tax management. These initiatives, which I will analyze on different occasions in this same space, demonstrate a sustained public policy of modernization of the Tax Administration.

As a new stage in this process, recently, the Public Revenue Secretariat under the Ministry of Economy and Public Management of the Province promoted two initiatives of special importance for administrative management: the implementation of a Compliance Management Program[1] and the creation of an area of Defense of the Rights of the Taxpayer[2]. Although both respond to different purposes, they share the same strategic objective: to strengthen tax governance by incorporating tools that increase the transparency of administrative procedures, reduce the spaces for discretion and strengthen the institutional protection of taxpayers’ rights.

These are rare initiatives in the field of subnational tax administrations in Latin America and, precisely for this reason, deserve to be highlighted and analyzed, insofar as they may constitute experiences of interest to other tax administrations in the region.

Compliance in the tax administration

The concept of compliance originated and initially developed in the business world as a management system designed to ensure compliance with the legal framework, prevent regulatory risks, and promote an organizational culture based on ethics, integrity, and transparency. Its evolution was driven by the need for organizations to move beyond merely reacting to breaches after they occurred and instead adopt preventive mechanisms capable of identifying, assessing, and managing the risks associated with their impacts.                                                In recent years, this model has gradually begun to be projected towards the public sector. The increasing complexity of state management, the development of international standards of integrity and the increased social demands on transparency prompted the incorporation of compliance systems as instruments aimed at strengthening public governance, improving internal processes and consolidating citizens’ trust in institutions.

In this sense, the implementation of a Compliance Management Program within a tax administration really represents an innovative step. It is not a question of mechanically transferring institutions belonging to the private sphere, but of adapting their principles and tools to the particularities of the exercise of the administrative function, trying to ensure that public decisions are developed under objective, verifiable and transparent parameters.

The tax administrations exercise public powers of special intensity that have a direct impact on the taxpayers’ assets and, consequently, require high standards of legality, objectivity and transparency. Although the principle of legality constitutes the essential foundation of any administrative action, this does not exclude the need to incorporate management tools that strengthen effective compliance with the legal system and minimize the risks associated with the development of the various administrative processes.

From this perspective, compliance is no longer conceived as a control mechanism over people to become a process management system. It identifies the risks inherent in each administrative procedure, establish objective controls, ensure the traceability of decisions and promote an organizational culture based on continuous improvement.

The resolution projected by the Province of Córdoba reflects this conception by defining compliance as an integral institutional management system aimed at regulatory compliance, administrative efficiency, functional integrity and traceability of administrative acts, through the use of tools such as risk matrices, internal audits and permanent process monitoring mechanisms.

The need for this type of tools is especially evident in administrative procedures that, without constituting tax determination or control processes, involve decisions of significant economic or legal significance and require technical assessments by the administration.

In this framework, the procedures related to the offsets, refunds and transfers of tax credits, the recognition of tax benefits and other administrative processes in which the administrative decisions go beyond the mere automatic application of previously regulated rules acquire special relevance.

In this type of actions, the incorporation of a compliance system acquires greater institutional relevance. The standardization of procedures, the identification of risks, the definition of objective controls and the traceability of decisions contribute to reducing the margins of administrative discretion, to strengthening legal certainty and to ensuring that decisions respond exclusively to previously defined technical and legal criteria.

The decisions taken in such procedures have direct effects on public revenue. Therefore, the incorporation of compliance mechanisms not only protects the legality and transparency of administrative action but also helps to ensure responsible management of public resources, for the benefit of the community.

The defense of the taxpayer’s rights

The recognition of taxpayers’ rights is one of the pillars of Modern tax governance. However, the mere incorporation of a catalogue of rights into the legal system is not sufficient if it is not accompanied by institutional mechanisms that guarantee their effective observance in the daily functioning of the Tax Administration.

Precisely for this reason, the second of the initiatives promoted by the Ministry of Public Revenue acquires a special institutional significance. The creation of a specific area of Defense of the Taxpayer’s Rights represents an additional step in the process of strengthening the guarantees recognized by the Provincial Tax Code, seeking to provide them with a specific area of monitoring, intervention and continuous improvement of administrative procedures.

One of the most important aspects of the Program is to clearly define the scope of your competencies. The area of Defense of the Rights of the Taxpayer does not constitute a new appellate instance or a body intended to review the legality of administrative acts or replace the powers of the Tax Administration. On the contrary, its purpose is to intervene on the functioning of administrative procedures, channel citizens’ proposals, identify systemic deficiencies and promote improvements in the provision of public tax services.

This delimitation is especially valuable, since it allows preserving the competences of the tax enforcement bodies, while incorporating an institutional mechanism aimed at strengthening the quality of administrative management from a citizen-centered perspective.

The Program is not incorporated within the structure of the Tax Administration responsible for verifying, supervising and collecting taxes, but is created within the framework of the Secretariat of Public Revenue, an organ that exercises the superintendence over the General Directorate of Revenue and the Directorate of Fiscal Intelligence.

This decision is not a purely organizational aspect. On the contrary, it strengthens the objectivity of the system, by allowing the taxpayers’ proposals to be channeled through a different area from the one that originally intervened in the administrative procedure. Without assuming review powers or replacing the decisions of the competent bodies, this institutional location contributes to strengthening citizens’ confidence in the impartiality of the mechanism and in its ability to detect opportunities for improvement in the organization itself.

The Program goes beyond the resolution of individual situations and is projected on the general functioning of the Tax Administration. The possibility of systematizing complaints, identifying recurring problems, detecting deficiencies in procedures and formulating recommendations for improvement makes the Taxpayer Rights Defense Area an institutional management tool aimed at improving the quality of tax management.

From this perspective, the initiative not only strengthens the protection of taxpayers’ rights, but also incorporates a permanent institutional feedback mechanism, capable of providing valuable information for the simplification of procedures, the improvement of citizen attention and the strengthening of administrative transparency.

The creation of a specific area of Defense of the Taxpayer’s Rights also reaffirms that the protection of taxpayers is a matter of tax law, which requires institutions designed according to the particularities of the exercise of tax power.

Final thoughts

The implementation of a Compliance Management Program and the creation of a specific area for the Defense of Taxpayers’ Rights are two different, but clearly complementary initiatives. While the first strengthens institutional integrity through risk management, traceability of processes and transparency in administrative performance, the second reaffirms the commitment of the Tax Administration to the effective protection of taxpayers’ rights and the continuous improvement of public services.

Both measures reflect a modern conception of tax management, in which collection efficiency is complemented with principles of integrity, transparency and institutional trust. In this sense, the experience of the Province of Córdoba shows that it is possible to incorporate innovative tax governance tools aimed at strengthening the institutional quality of Tax Administration. Its still infrequent nature in the field of subnational tax administrations in Latin America makes this experience an interesting background that can serve as a reference for other jurisdictions committed to the modernization of their tax management.

In short, the experience developed by the Province of Córdoba shows that the modernization of tax administrations no longer depends exclusively on the incorporation of new technologies or the simplification of procedures, but also on the strengthening of their institutional governance. Organizational integrity and the effective protection of the taxpayer’s rights appear as two complementary dimensions of the same tax administration model

Referencias:

[1] SIP Resolution N° 08/2026. (BO: 8/04/2026).

[2] SIP Resolution No. 6/2026. (BO: 31/03/2026).

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