Five years of shared efforts to advance tax transparency bring concrete benefits for Latin American countries

 

30/05/2024 - Published today by the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (Global Forum), Tax Transparency in Latin America 2024 shows how Latin American countries reported identifying at least EUR 27.8 billion in additional revenue since 2009, through exchange of information on request (EOIR), offshore tax investigations, automatic exchange of financial account information (AEOI) and related voluntary disclosure programmes.

Noting that Latin American countries do not yet systematically monitor the impact of exchange of information (EOI) on domestic resource mobilisation, the report details how reporting jurisdictions identified close to EUR 2.1 billion in additional revenue over the last 5 years.

The Tax Transparency in Latin America report is a key output of the Punta del Este Declaration, a Latin American initiative established in 2018 to tackle tax evasion, corruption and other financial crimes through transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes. Covering 15 Latin American member countries of the Global Forum and aimed at informing decision makers and citizens on the latest progress and remaining challenges in the region, the 2024 edition includes numerous figures, case studies and testimonies, showing the impactful results achieved to date, notably on domestic resource mobilisation.

Important recent developments include:

• Latin American countries reported EUR 862 million in additional revenue for 2019-23, resulting from 2 964 requests for information (EUR 291 000 per request on average).
  
  
• 8 Latin American countries relayed how the use of automatically exchanged information helped support tax activities, compliance, and revenue collection, with at least EUR 118.9 million identified between 2018 and 2023.
  
  
• Trough the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (MAAC), Latin American members have entered into over 2 000 EOI bilateral relationships to foster tax co-operation and most of them have an EOI network covering more than 140 jurisdictions.
  
  
• 8 out of 10 Latin American countries that have been fully reviewed in the second round of EOIR peer reviews were granted a satisfactory rating (“Compliant” or “Largely compliant”).
  
  
• 7 957 officials were trained on EOI by the Global Forum Secretariat between 2020 to 2023, including through its flagship Train the Trainer and Women Leaders in Tax Transparency programmes.
  
  
• 6 Latin American countries are participating in a pilot project on wider use of treaty-exchanged information, as permitted under the MAAC and domestic laws.

"Strong progress has been achieved in the region, since the launch of the Punta del Este Declaration in 2018. Latin American countries have taken very important steps to put in place the needed infrastructure to implement and benefit from the international tax transparency standards,” said Zayda Manatta, Head of the Global Forum Secretariat. “The efforts are clearly paying off, and exchange of information is now a key part of the governments' strategies to fight tax evasion and other illicit financial flows and to mobilise the much-needed resources to finance their development.”

The launch of Tax Transparency in Latin America 2024 is part of the 10^th Meeting of the Punta del Este Declaration, which is held on 30-31 May 2024 in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. The meeting was organised with the financial support of the Inter-American Development Bank and kindly hosted by the Spanish Cooperation, in its Cartagena Training Centre.

With 171 members, the Global Forum is the leading multilateral body mandated to ensure that jurisdictions around the world adhere to and effectively implement both the exchange of information on request standard and the standard of automatic exchange of information. These objectives are achieved through a robust monitoring and peer review process. The Global Forum also runs an extensive capacity-building programme to support its members in implementing the standards and help tax authorities make the best use of cross-border information sharing channels. The Global Forum capacity-building programme is supported by the following development partners:

For more information, please contact gftaxcooperation@oecd.org.

For interview requests, journalists should contact Lawrence Speer, Senior Media Officer at the OECD Media Division. For more information about the report and the Global Forum’s Latin America Initiative, please contact Zayda Manatta, Head of the Global Forum Secretariat (+33 1 45 24 82 29).