A new publication called "A guide to tax work for NGOs",written by Joel Friedman and published by the International Budget Project has just been published.

This guide is intended to help demystify revenue policy issues and give civil society budget groups the tools they need to influence revenue policy in the same way that they have been able to influence expenditure policy.

The guide discusses revenue issues, and especially taxes such as the value-added tax and personal income tax. It provides a basic description of different tax types, discusses some of the key debates, gives examples from a range of countries, and provides ideas for revenue-related projects that groups might want to undertake.

The following areas are covered:

• the importance of revenue issues to civil society groups
• fairness and equity issues in tax policy and the value of tax administration
• examples of basic and advanced civil society revenue projects
• a guide to revenue analysis techniques
• selected policy issues including income tax and those relating to extractive industries.
• a detailed bibliography is presented together with a guide to further sources of information.

I strongly recommend it to anyone with concern in this area.