From March 13 to 16 of this year, experts from various fields met in Kingston, for advising the Tax Administration of Jamaica (TAJ) in the design and implementation of processes to exchange information to fight tax evasion and tax fraud effectively and according to international standards.

Due to the interest of the Jamaican authorities to improve their level of transparency, their Tax Administration has proposed a comprehensive reform, which among other relevant aspects, provides for the strengthening of their sources of information and their ability to effectively exchange information. As a proof of this, they have joined the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information.

The tax authorities of Jamaica have also raised the possibility of improving and expanding their network of information exchange tools and use these tools to efficiently fight fraud and tax evasion in Jamaica.

In order to support the aforementioned processes of change considered by the TAJ, the CIAT has conducted multilateral coordination tasks, in line with the recommendations of various international forums (G20, Task Force, ITC, ITD, etc..), which resulted in the co-sponsorship and support of prestigious organizations such as the World Bank, the Global Forum, the Guardia di Finanza of Italy and the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The event was inaugurated on March 13, 2012 with remarks from the Honourable Dr. Peter Phillips, Minister of Finance and Planning of Jamaica, Mrs. Rosalee Brown, Deputy Commissioner General of Operations of the TAJ, Mr. Dave Jeffery, Large Taxpayers Office General Manager and Mr. Socorro Velazquez, CIAT Institutional Planning and Development Director.

Among the attending experts were Gonzalo Arias (CIAT), Bryan Welsh, (World Bank), Caroline Malcolm (Global Forum), Raul Pertierra (IRS) and Stefano Gesuelli (Guardia di Finanza). On the part of TAJ, officials from various areas involved in the process of exchange of information at the international level have participated and have presented in detail both the current situation on how information is exchanged at the international level, and their plans to improve the processes and achieve the desired effectiveness.

The activity has been very useful in order to adjust and reformulate aspects of the improvement plan proposed by the TAJ, and to make the TAJ aware of potential risks and actions to be taken as a result of its implementation.

It was noted that the TAJ has highly effective, clear and precise objectives to achieve effective information exchange, by which experts consider that it will not be difficult for the TAJ to achieve this goal.

Group of instructors and TAJ officials who attended the event.

From left to right, Mr. Gonzalo Arias, CIAT International Taxation and Cooperation Director, and
Dave Jeffery,  Large Taxpayers Office General Manager

From left to right, Honourable Dr. Peter Phillips, Minister of Finance and Planning of Jamaica
Mr. Socorro Velazquez, CIAT Institutional Planning and Development Director, and
Mrs. Rosalee Brown, Deputy Commissioner General of Operations