The OECD, on Thursday, 30 May, 2024, published the Tax Transparency in Latin America 2024.

Published 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.

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 five 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).
• Eight 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.
• Through 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.
• Eight 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.
• Six Latin American countries are participating in a pilot project on wider use of treaty-exchanged information, as permitted under the MAAC and domestic laws.

The launch of Tax Transparency in Latin America 2024 is part of the 10th Meeting of the Punta del Este Declaration, which was 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.