Int'l community on track against tax evasion: OECD

By Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) - New standards on exchanging information automatically for taxation purposes have so far taken hold around the world, marking an important milestone in the global fight against tax evasion, according to OECD.

In a report published Thursday, the OECD showed that in 2019, countries automatically exchanged information on 84 million financial accounts worldwide, covering total assets of $10 trillion.

A total of €107 billion ($129 billion) in additional tax revenues have been identified via voluntary disclosure programs, offshore tax investigations and related measures since 2009, a rise over the €102 billion figure reported in 2019, according to the first Peer Review of the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information.

"Ensuring access to financial account information for tax administrations helps ensure everyone pays their fair share of tax," OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria said at the 2020 Global Forum plenary meeting on Thursday, where the report was released.

This will boost revenue mobilization for countries worldwide, and particularly for developing countries, he added.

The OECD's Global Forum Secretariat provided technical assistance to 59 developing countries in 2020, training thousands of tax administration officials as part of efforts to strengthen tax collection capacity worldwide.

"The battle for transparency is being fought on many fronts," stressed Zayda Manatta, the secretariat's chief.

"We are moving fast towards full implementation of the existing standards, and taking every effort to ensure all our members benefit from them."

As governments across the world have been responding to the novel coronavirus pandemic, multilateral cooperation on transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes have become more important to back their mobilize tax revenues.