I wrote the first post of this series – and the Blog that we named CIATalk – in September 2010, when we launched our brand new site on the Internet, which was the third one if I remember well. When we built that system, we had some clear ideas, for example: that we wanted to “open” the site and provide access to documents for all users; to cover the recent restructuring of the Executive Secretariat; and create a more informal exchange space than the CIAT Review, but also more frequent, more direct and of shorter reading.

At that time, as always, there were concepts that made noise and were there to stay. Some remained and remained firm and grew, for example, the role of mobile phones in the lives of most people, or foreseeing the importance that electronic invoicing would have in Latin America. Others, such as the Blackberry or ITD, lost their strength. Since then, other important innovations have appeared, with the ability to influence what we do and how we do it, for example, cloud services in technology or the BEPS Program in international taxation.

So, our new site is now presented to the world (or, more modestly, the tax administration world), which, you have already imagined, operates from the cloud, with a user experience, which we truly expect, is adapted also for small screens. The site highlights things that we know may interest you, in part because you told us expressly in an email or sharing a coffee, but a lot because we analyze, as many things are done today, the traffic of users through the website. Areas of great interest include the library, the training area, all the resources associated with training and the virtual classroom, tax statistics, the profiles of member countries and, interestingly enough? The blog.

So here we are, with a blog that pretends to stay, and that with the same spirit again I extends the same invitation to authors and readers to keep it healthy over time.

In that first post, I announced my intention to call to reflection on some elements, methods and customs that seemed to have always been there and made in the same way, so they are sometimes accepted as they are and maintained in time, because always It was thus, or perhaps, because there is a rule that requires it, and has always required it that way.

In this year 2017, when tax administrations in Latin America have certainly more than 50 billion of electronic documents, in which more and more people access the Internet through mobile devices and from every place at every time? It is the same to consult in the middle of a dinner the name of an actor of an old movie than to access a bank account, or regardless your age, send a short message, sometimes encrypted in those modern drawings that we call emoji, A joke, an improved photograph or, more and more, live video of what is happening before our eyes. In 2017, however, in more than one place, some of our administrations continue to issue different things on ancient paper documents, certificates among others. Certificates ranging from proof of registration to authorizations to do something to certificates of compliance, to be at peace with tax obligations. Of course there are reasons, of course, these are necessary to register a sale of something, or because they are demanded as a document for a process or contest, or because they ask someone in certain circumstances to, for example, leave the country. Of course, almost always, their authenticity can be verified by accessing a page of the administration on the Internet and capturing a code of forty-and-more positions or using a device (sometimes the mobile that we carry in the pocket) to read a bar code or QR.

An electronic consultation service of the status of compliance with access to the authorized, or whom the taxpayer authorizes to see (for example, a bank) would work better. Not only would there be certainty, but a series of problems would be avoided and, euphemistically, temptations. Surely we have to overcome customs and culture and perhaps modify some rule, but this would allow us complying with that commandment that Vinicius de Freitas confessed to be part of his religion: “Thou shall not certify,” in another context it would be clear, but…

Greetings and Godspeed.

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