June 2, 2008 – The First Meeting of the Standing Committee for the Control of Abusive Tax Planning was held successfully on 27-30 May 2008 in El Panama Hotel, Panama city.

The Committee has the following objectives:

–    Establishing mechanisms for an effective exchange of knowledge and experience among the tax administrations of CIAT’s member countries, aimed at an early detection and effective containment of international tax evasion, avoidance and fraud.
–    Accompanying, collecting, classifying and supplementing arrangements and instruments used in abusive international tax planning that were detected by the tax administrations of CIAT’s member countries, and indicating possible legislative and/or administrative containment measures and applicable detection, selection and control processes.
–    Performing research and analysis activities to develop an adequate conceptual framework.

For the attainment of the above objectives, participants at this first meeting discussed and adopted the rules of procedure of the Committee, the work to be done and outcomes expected from the first year of work, in addition to the methods and IT tools to be used in the exchange of experiences and discussions among members. Responsibilities and commitments of members were defined, a work schedule was set for the Committee’s activities until late June 2009, in addition to the work expected to be done during the second year of activity of the Committee.

Present at the meeting were Oscar Ramos from Argentina, Claudemir Rodriguez M. from Brazil, Ken Anders from Canada, Eduardo Medel from Chile, Jorge Ayala from Ecuador, Carlos Serrano from Spain, Fabienne Renaud Aidan from France, Jorge Libreros from Mexico, Arsenio Bernal from Paraguay, and Carlos José Santos and Nieves Vargas from Dominican Republic. The meeting was opened by CIAT Executive Secretary Claudino Pita. Also present from the Executive Secretariat were Director of Tax Studies Maria Raquel Ayala; Gonzalo Arias, an expert of the Tax Research Office; and Julio A. López, Assistant of the Legislation and Statistics Office.

The delegates decided, among other things, to develop a permanent data base with schemes, instruments and legal and administrative measures to contain tax evasion, avoidance and fraud, for which it will be necessary for countries to contribute information.