William Byrnes' Tax, Wealth, and Risk Intelligence

The OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project and the move to automatic exchange of financial account information took centre stage when Heads of Tax Administration met on 23-24 October in Dublin, Ireland.  The FTA is the leading international body concerned with tax administration, bringing together the heads of tax administrations from the OECD, members of the G20 and large emerging economies.

More than forty delegations participated in the Ninth Meeting of the OECD Forum on Tax Administration (FTA) and agreed that ever greater co-operation will be necessary to implement the results of the BEPS project and automatic exchange of information.

Specifically they agreed:

• A strategy for systematic and enhanced co-operation between tax administrations;
• To invest the resources needed to implement the new standard on automatic exchange of information; and
• To improve the practical operation of the mutual agreement process.

The communiqué released at the close of the meeting contains more details and contains links to the following publications that have just been released by the FTA:

• Increasing Taxpayers’ Use of Self-service Channels
• Working Smarter in Tax Debt Management
• Tax Compliance by Design – Achieving improved SME Tax Compliance by Adopting a System Perspective
• Measures of Tax Compliance Outcomes – A Practical Guide

Excerpted from the communiqué:  To support the implementation of these global initiatives, while improving service levels and operational efficiency, we as Commissioners with responsibility for tax administration and compliance management must work ever more closely together, share our knowledge, co-ordinate our actions and deal with tax administration aspects that may result from the BEPS work. Recognising the support of G20 Finance Ministers for further “co-ordination and collaboration by tax administrations on compliance activities on entities and individuals involved in cross border tax arrangements” we agreed the following actions:

• We are taking a significant step forward in global tax co-operation. We have agreed a strategy for systematic and enhanced co-operation between our tax administrations, based on existing legal instruments, that will allow us to quickly understand and deal with global tax risks whenever and wherever they arise. Along with the strategy, we have created a new international platform called the JITSIC1 Network to focus specifically on cross border tax avoidance, which is open to all FTA members on a voluntary basis. This new network integrates the existing cooperation amongst some of us into the larger FTA framework.

• We will invest the resources necessary to implement the new standard on automatic exchange of information and use the information to counter tax evasion wherever it arises, while protecting taxpayer confidentiality and ensuring the proper use of the information. We will ensure that common, secure and effective transmission systems are in place.

• We will improve the practical operation of the Mutual Agreement Procedure (MAP) so that issues of double taxation are addressed more quickly and efficiently in order to meet the needs of both governments and taxpayers and so assure the critical role of those procedures in the global tax environment. We have advanced work in this area which will be integrated with the result from the related 2015 BEPS action item. We will encourage competent authorities of all member countries to actively participate in the relevant activities (www.oecd.org/site/ctpfta/map-strategic-plan.pdf).