The first step in implementing a change is to understand the current state. To reduce legal costs, you first need to understand where you stand. This means that you know not only the total amount of your expenses, but also how much you spend in each practice area and which law firms or suppliers work with. Also, don`t forget to look at the work you`re currently doing in-house. With an understanding of external legal expenses and in-house legal work, you`ll have an up-to-date picture of how you allocate the company`s demand for legal services to the provision of the legal services you have. With this deeper understanding, you`ll begin to see where you can actually impact spending. Of course, this will always be a difficult judgment; In a few years, the reserve may be more than sufficient – in this case, the unencumbered balance can be used to improve the budgetary position in relation to the budget. In other years, some surplus may appear, including after the contingency reserve, and should be transparently offset by additional estimates – see section 4. Those preparing the budget should ensure that some estimate of expenditures from explicit and implicit contingent liabilities is taken into account in the preparation of the budget. Developing countries trying to fully integrate into the global economy are likely to need higher levels of taxation if they are to exercise a governance role closer to that of developed countries, which on average have twice as much tax revenue. Developing countries will need to significantly reduce their dependence on taxes on foreign trade without creating economic disincentives, particularly in terms of increasing income tax revenues. To meet these challenges, policymakers in these countries need to properly define their political priorities and have the political will to implement the necessary reforms. Tax administrations need to be strengthened to accompany the necessary policy changes.

A planning reserve is an amount not provided for in the guidelines (usually one or two per cent of total expenditure) that the Ministry of Finance intends to allocate later to new programmes, possibly beyond the guidelines of the budget negotiations. A contingency reserve is a current period expenditure reserve that exceeds appropriations to meet the existence of actual contingent liabilities; It should be modest (if too large, a contracting process by departments can begin quickly) and is therefore unlikely to exceed 2-3% of total expenditures.19 It should be under the control of the Ministry of Finance and access should only be granted by the Ministry of Finance under strict conditions. The Constitution, the Law on Budgetary Bodies and the Financial Regulation are permanent and constitute the legal framework within which the annual budget law, which contains the estimates of revenue and expenditure for a given year, is prepared, approved, implemented and monitored. The annual finance law can take different forms depending on the system. Many countries have spending agencies that are able to finance much of their activities from their own revenue streams – usually fees and charges.