The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has advised that 45 Tax Commissioners have recently gathered for the 8th meeting of the Forum on Tax Administration held on 16-17 May 2013 in Moscow, Russia. In a final communiqué from the Forum, the Commissioners affirmed their commitment to work together to tackle trans-national tax fraud, tax evasion, and aggressive tax planning. The Commissioners advised that they have developed tools to improve the gathering of information on cross-border financial transfers, to decode banking transactions and to identify the beneficial owners of complex structures.
The Forum members have also released a publication entitled, Tax Administration 2013, which reports on a survey of tax administration systems across 52 advanced and emerging economies. The 379-page report provides key trends, recent developments and examples of good practice of revenue bodies. Chapter 8 of the report outlines aspects concerned with revenue bodies’ administration of tax intermediaries. A key point from the report is that many revenue bodies may be missing substantial opportunities for leveraging improved compliance noting that less than one-third of revenue bodies reported the existence of specific laws/regulations governing the tax-related operations of tax professionals.
[LTN 95, 20/5/13]