When, in the first half of the year, we learned that the 2023 Technical Conference would be cancelled, we did not imagine that at the General Assembly in Punta del Este we would receive very pleasant news from Ecuador, this time not related to any of the many good things that the SRI does within the framework of its management, but the invitation made by its director, Francisco Briones, to receive us for the Technical Conference in Quito, from October 25 to 27.

The theme of the Conference revolves around “Good practices to reduce tax evasion in the framework of international taxation“, now that 10 years have passed since BEPS, it is worth reviewing the application of its measures as well as the efforts in the exchange of tax information and cooperation between countries. It also finds us at a time of progress and maturation, where important changes in international taxation are more or less halfway between design and implementation, both in terms of amount A of Pillar 1, which establishes a new taxing right for market jurisdictions on the residual profits of the world’s largest companies, and the establishment of a global minimum tax.

And if these reforms are halfway, it is very appropriate to talk about them in the middle of the world, precisely in Quito, Cultural Heritage of Humanity, a city with one of the important historical centers of the continent, which sleeps peacefully at the foot of an active volcano, the Pichincha, and from where on sunny days you can see, snow-capped, three other volcanoes: Cayambe to the north, Antisana to the east and Cotopaxi to the south; where the imposing structures of the La Compañía, the Colonial Jesuit church, of San Francisco, Santo Domingo, La Merced or the Cathedral, in Gothic style, to Mudejar, to Baroque, or the imposing and neo-Gothic Basilica del Voto Nacional, compete with its imposing interiors full of art or the carved altarpieces, polychrome and bathed in gold leaf.

Those who have already passed through the Barajas airport were surely surprised by the spectacular mural by Oswaldo Guayasamín, which can serve as an appetizer for someone to visit the Capilla del Hombre (Chapel of Man). Those who enjoy art can appreciate in the more than 40 museums, in addition to Guayasamín, the works of Kingman, Endara Crow, Bazante or Pilar Bustos and, why not, the Colonial Art Museum with works by Miguel de Santiago, Caspicara and Legarda and his Virgin of Quito.

Of course, I am not being objective when I tell you how beautiful the city is, and its culinary virtues, or its 2800 meters above sea level, or its endearing people, or learning about the good things that the SRI does. Nor if I tell them that their problems, as in many places, are not as big as we sometimes perceive, nor so different from those of other latitudes. I am not objective, because and as the song says, “I was born here“. But I am sure you will like the Technical Conference, Quito and Ecuador. See you in Quito.

Greetings and Good luck

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