From March 31 to April 3, 2025, a seminar on “Effective cooperation strategies: the foreseeable relevance of information exchange” was held at the Spanish Cooperation Training Center in La Antigua, Guatemala.

This activity was sponsored by the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, the Spanish Institute of Tax Studies (IEF) and the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), with the support of the Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations (CIAT) and the World Bank and was attended by representatives of 13 tax administrations from Latin American countries.

The objective of the Seminar was to resume multilateral discussions in the region on the exchange of information upon request, with the aim of promoting its effective use and generating a common understanding on the application of the Principle of Predictable Relevance, especially in cases that constitute dilemmas for tax administrations.

Among the main conclusions of the seminar were the importance of:

1. Effective communication throughout the process of information exchange under request.
2. Good faith in the interpretation of instruments for the exchange of information.
3. Correctly substantiate group requests, where members are not individually identified.
4. Comply with the principles of subsidiarity, reciprocity, proportionality, no domestic interest and no double criminality.
5. Evaluate the possibility of allowing the use of information for other purposes..
6. Streamline internal processes to facilitate timely information exchange..
7. Contemplate exceptions when it is the requesting country is obliged to notify the taxpayer about the exchange of information.
8. Train internally the users of information exchange to motivate the use of cooperation instruments to access foreseeably relevant information.
9. Maintain high standards of confidentiality.

The CIAT Executive Secretariat appreciates the trust and cooperation of all the partners in this activity and the proactivity of the representatives of the tax administrations present, which enriched the discussions.