OECD considers “very important” that Latin America continues to advance in fiscal transparency

The head of the Secretariat of the Global Forum of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Zayda Manatta, highlighted that it is “very important“that Latin American countries continue to advance in fiscal transparency to combat illicit financial flows and to be able to”finance the development of countries”.

In an interview with EFE on the occasion of the publication of the ‘Fiscal Transparency Report in Latin America 2024’, which states that the countries of the region achieved “tangible progress” in recent years, Manatta applauded the fact that they are “very committed” with the objectives of fiscal transparency, as well as in the training of officials to achieve it.

“The main advances are that all Latin American countries have joined, waiting for the approval of the Congress of Honduras” to the Punta del Este Declaration, signed in 2018 to combat illicit financial flows through greater international tax cooperation.

This demonstrates a “political support” necessary to obtain good results in terms of fiscal transparency.

“A few years ago, countries were receiving automatic information, but they were not using it more widely as they could.”, something that has now changed. An example is Peruwhich at this time “has increased requests for information by more than 2,000%”Manatta added.

By joining this convention, countries have access to information from more than 145 jurisdictions around the world, and thanks to the automatic exchange of financial accounts every year, financial institutions collect data from non-resident citizens and send it to the countries where they reside.

According to the report, by using information exchange systems, countries have achieved at least 862 million euros (about US$934 million) in additional revenue identified from 2019 to 2023 alone, thanks to 2,964 cross-border requests for information.

Challenges

Manatta pointed out requests for information as one of the pending issues because “not all countries are using it as they could”.

For example, one of the ways this tool is most used is for risk management and audits, but only 60% or 70% of countries do it, so there is still 30% or 40% that They can do it, in the words of Manatta.

Furthermore, requests for information are concentrated in “more than 90%” in four countries in the region: Argentina, Colombia, Peru and Mexico, so there is room for improvement for those who are not using it as much.

“There is room to grow and move forward with this“, insisted Manatta, who highlighted Argentina, “champion of information requests in the region who has made many efforts in this regard”.

For his part, he noted that Guatemala is one of the countries facing the most difficulties at the moment, “since it is the only country in the region that has a notation of its non-compliant evaluation” and has “important challenges”, so technical assistance is being provided to advance.

The signatory countries of the Punta del Este Declaration meet this Thursday and Friday in the Colombian city of Cartagena de Indias where, in addition to presenting the report and taking stock of the progress of the last year, they are expected to sign an agreement to use the information that they exchange for other purposes such as combating corruption, money laundering, terrorism and customs crimes, Manatta confirmed.