On Friday May 24, the session of the CIAT Permanent Committee on Ethics was held in Havana, Cuba, with the participation of representatives from 21 countries and 5 international organizations.

From the working group on Transparency, Juan Francisco Redondo presented his documents related to transparency in the tax administrations of the region (with the participation of some non Latin American countries). This study from 2018 is enriched with a survey on the subject[1]. It was accompanied by a document on the fight against corruption, also documented via a 2019 survey.

The Internal Control group shared what was done on the integrity framework in the tax administrations. It highlighted the fact that multiple factors that can be used for an integrity framework, depending clearly on the characteristics of each tax administration that nevertheless share certain features. These allow sharing certain favorable practices for integrity management in an institution dedicated to the collection of public revenues. (Chile shared us their analysis on the áreas of improvement to the Internal Control Manual)

Similarly, Juan Antonio Garde shared the interpretation of the data obtained in the survey of the working group on corruption, with the same importance he shared with us the vision of the challenges that we will have to face as new analysis topics for the CIAT Standing Committee on Ethics.

On the other hand, the group updating the Ethics Tool-Kit presented a Declaration for the Promotion of Ethics updated to 2019[2]. This one goes back to the work of the committee itself since 2006 and sets the guideline for updating other products of the Tool-Kit with a view to turning it into a reference and a model for the TAs interested in its application. This declaration was developed since the beginning of 2019 and presented to the CIAT representatives during the Administrative Session on May 20; it was published in the plenary session of the Assembly on May 23.

Our colleague Concepcion Sacristan gave a presentation on CIAT’s ethics course, especially on aspects of improvement, after several years of its application in various training spaces in which CIAT participates. In this session, the Mexican Tax Administration Service was also incorporated as a member of the Committee.

During the Committee, various comments and proposals were received from the participants on the topic of ethics in the TAs (among them, to have the tool-kit also in French). In addition, it was proposed to the participants of the other international organizations akin to CIAT, to extend the scope of the Committee to their own organizations in the framework of the work of the NTO (Network of Tax Organizations).

As you can see, we have various fronts to work on:

• Declaration on Conflict of interest

• Control of public servants assets

• Updating the self-diagnosis toolkit

• Make the materials available in French

• Expand the committee to the NTO

• The Ethics as a performance evaluation factor

To make this possible, we will keep asking for the participation and cooperation of all TAs and all those interested in promoting integrity and ethics. Discussing this important aspect of the life of our institutions does not represent a major difficulty, but to talk head-on about the seriousness and damage that corruption causes us and the ways in which we face its effects, is really the great niche of opportunity that we have. Carry out a collective learning and sharing good practices that allow us to prevent, combat and inhibit its incidence.

One of the fundamental aspects is to have a critical sense on the issue. It is not sufficient to recognize it, it is also necessary to dimension its causes, its ways of operating, its effects and the way in which we habilitate instruments of diverse nature to mitigate its effects.

There is a long way to go, which will undoubtedly be better if we walk it together.

[1] You can find these works at:

 WP-03-2019: Status of transparency and accountability

WP-04-2019: The role of tax administrations in the fight against external corruption

[2] Declaration on the Promotion of Ethics in Tax Administration 

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