This book and its companion, Fiscal Policy for Economic Growth in Latin America, are probably the best available on this subject for the area as a whole. A few titles of the ten chapters that make up this book will give an idea of its broad scope: Common Obstacles to Effective Tax Administration, Statistical Records for the Management and Control of Tax Administration, Automatic Data Processing and Tax Administration, Trends in Management Techniques, and Controlling Income Tax Evasion. The tenth chapter is a fine summary of the scope and contributions of the Conference.

As the title indicates, this is the printed form of the papers and proceedings of a conference held in Buenos Aires. The specialists, experts, highly experienced administrators, technicians, and distinguished scholars who participated in the discussions that followed each paper pointed out new dimensions of the problems. These were often regional, involving particular local realities or the need to adapt legislation and administration to the structures, conditions, customs, and idiosyncrasies of individual countries. The participants’ freedom to speak out, unbound to government policies or loyalties, contributed immensely to the frankness of the papers and the discussions. The latter are given in summary form, avoiding digressions and tedious repetitions.

Although of varying interest all the papers are penetrating, thorough, richly documented, and authoritative pieces of work. Noticeable overlaps, such as on the basic problem of tax evasion, only emphasize how intricately interwoven these problems are. Unfortunately the book is already out of date. The many suggestions and solutions so urgently recommended—tax legislation, structural tax reforms, automatic data gathering, streamlining of tax administration, personnel training, tax advisory missions, and so forth—are all going concerns nowadays in Latin America under the Alliance for Progress. AID’s strong technical assistance has been growing on all these fronts for five years. Revenue collections have tended to rise in all Latin American countries. Many of them show increases ranging from twenty-five to forty percent in the last two years alone, increases attributable in large measure to the implementation of the very proposals made at this conference.

No one but the most naive would believe that these problems will soon be solved. Hence this book continues to have relevance and substance as a comprehensive view of a highly complex problem. The noninitiated as well as the student and the specialist can read it with much profit.