The OECD published the Tax Transparency in Africa 2024: Africa Initiative Progress Report on 3 June, 2024. The report revealed that African countries collected more fiscal revenue through tax transparency, exchange of information and related measures in 2023 than over the 13 preceding years combined.
With EUR 2.2 billion of additional revenue reported by seven African countries last year, the report makes a strong case for an ever-sharpening political attention on the matters of transparency and international tax co-operation.
In total, since 2009, African countries have identified over EUR 3.8 billion in additional revenue as a result of the use of the exchange of information on request (EOIR), automatic exchange of financial account information (AEOI), and voluntary disclosure programmes (VDPs).
After 10 years of shared progress on advancing the implementation of EOIR and AEOI, the 39 members of the Africa Initiative are now harnessing the fruits of their sustained and collective efforts in the fight against tax evasion and other illicit financial flows, with domestic resource mobilisation (DRM) spin-off as a guiding light.
“The creation of the Africa Initiative was prompted by the need to make tax transparency a lever for increasing public resources in African countries,” said Philippe Kokou Tchodié, Commissioner General, Togolese Revenue Office, and Co–Chair of the Africa Initiative. “This can only be achieved through strong political support and, above all, capacity building that enables tax administrations to make effective use of international information exchange in the fight against international tax evasion and avoidance.”
The launch of Tax Transparency in Africa 2024 is part of the 15th Meeting of the Africa Initiative – jointly organised by the Global Forum Secretariat, Office Togolais des Recettes (OTR), and the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Togo – to be held on 3-5 June 2024 in Lomé, Togo.
Major breakthroughs
- 22 African countries have joined the Global Forum since 2014, including five since March 2023 (Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Zambia and Zimbabwe).
- Through the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (MAAC), African countries have entered into over 3400 EOI bilateral relationships to foster tax co-operation and most of them have an EOI network covering more than 140 jurisdictions.
- 12 African countries are committed to start automatically exchanging financial account information by 2026, and 5 have already started automatic exchanges.
- Eight out of 12 African countries fully reviewed in the second round of EOIR peer reviews were granted a satisfactory rating (“Compliant” or “Largely compliant”).
- More than 2700 tax officials have been trained on the exchange of information by the Global Forum Secretariat between 2020 and 2023, including through the flagship programmes: Train the Trainer and Women Leaders in Tax Transparency.
