On July 25 to 27, officials from the CIAT Executive Secretariat met in Brasilia with officials of the Secretaria da Receita Federal (RFB) and the Federal Service for Data Processing (SERPRPO) of Brazil, with the purpose of understanding the functioning of the computer tool designed to implement the “Public Information Standard” of interest to the tax control discussed in the meeting held in Panama last February.

This software tool has been designed by CIAT and RFB, and developed by the SERPRO. It will allow the tax administrations of countries that decide to be part of the initiative, access to public information sources from different countries, related to movable and immovable property, financial system debtors, freight, foreign trade, tax debtors, and taxpayers, agents of tax withholding / tax collection, among others. The tool provides a powerful search engine and provides attributes of information sources that facilitate the search, including a breakdown of the data included in each of the sources, the data needed to access each source, the possible cost to access the information or the procedure for obtaining it, among others. The tool also has systems that allow users to contact tax administrations to require unpublished public information and rate the sources according to their usefulness.

In the coming months we will be conducting the negotiations for the RFD to transfer the “software” to CIAT and therefore the CIAT will start with DIP member countries the work to implement the public information standard.

The CIAT Executive Secretariat wishes to thanks the RFB for their support, the SERPRO for the excellence in the development of the tool and the GIZ of Germany for the financial support provided to carry out this mission.

From left to right: Melissa Azevedo, General Coordination of International Relations Assistant, Rafael Santiago Lima, Coordinator of Tax Activities Studies, Flávio Antonio Araújo, General Coordinator of International Relations, Paulo Ricardo Cardoso, Deputy Secretary of Receita Federal, Gonzalo Arias, CIAT Cooperation and International Tax Director and Monica Alonso, CIAT Manager of International Cooperation.

From left to right: Paulo Ricardo Cardoso, Deputy Secretary of Receita Federal Flávio Antonio Araújo, Deputy Secretary of Receita Federal and Gonzalo Arias, CIAT Cooperation and International Tax Director.

From left to right: Omaraly Blanco, Assistant of CIAT Cooperation and International Taxation, Rafael Santiago y Melissa Azevedo,(Receita Federal), Gonzalo Arias and Monica Alonso (CIAT), Paulo Cirilo Santos Mendes, General Coordinator of Programming and Studies, RF