Come and join us at our upcoming event where senior officials from tax administrations of IOTA membership and non-member countries, representatives of international organisations, academia and businesses will have an opportunity to discuss the best practises to ensure the protection of taxpayers data and ways to improve trust in the relations between tax authorities and taxpayers.
Please see the finalised agenda for more information.
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If you are not a member of the website, please contact us on [email protected] for information about participating in the event.
Intra-European Organisation of Tax Administrations (IOTA), in close cooperation and support with the National Tax and Customs Administration of Hungary, is holding the 2nd Annual International Conference, allowing the debate on ensuring confidentiality of taxpayer data.
Some of the governance lessons learned by tax administrations in advanced economies, including those on how to meet an adequate level of privacy, security and the protection of data, can provide guidance (or at least food for thought) as other countries begin reforming tax information and data privacy functions within tax administration.
Representatives from regional and international organisations, business sector, academia and civil society are invited to engage in discussions and to seek for the ways to achieve the effective protection of privacy and security of data held by tax administrations.
The Conference agenda will feature six distinct sessions each comprising three-four presentations and a panel discussion. The sessions are intended to provide answers to the following questions:
- Session 1 – what is the impact of data collection and exchange on Tax Administrations (changes in structures and staff, implementation plans, uses for the data received, approaches to specific groups of taxpayers such as high net wealth individuals) following the new international standards put in place under BEPS, AEoI, CRS, FATCA, etc.?
- Session 2 - what are the measures tax authorities are taking to ensure ethical behaviour and the respect of professional values from their officials (whistleblowing, training, capacity building)? What sort of rules and mechanisms tax administrations apply to fight back corruption and other illegal practices (legislation, regulations, codes of conduct, guidelines, internal controls)?
- Session 3 – what are the expectations, concerns, fears in developing good relations between tax authorities and taxpayers/customers? What is the role of tax intermediaries?
- Session 4 – what is the influence of a good/bad interaction between media and tax administrations on tax governance? How can good interaction play a role in raising trust, better services and eventually more revenue?
- Session 5 – what are the most effective measures to identify and prevent threats involving tax scams and fraudulent communications?
- Session 6 – how can a better tax governance benefit developing countries and ensure higher tax administration performance? What examples can be provided as successes in developing and funding programmes and its impact on the progress of tax administrations?
Tax authorities receive a lot of confidential information from individuals and businesses in a digital format. They also routinely exchange taxpayer information with other governmental bodies. Furthermore, tax administrations have put a lot of work into developing systems for news standards of automatic exchange of information under multilateral or bilateral agreements. The knowledge gained from these experiences, especially when introducing adequate safeguards to protect taxpayer privacy and ensure confidentiality of information, can provide valuable lessons as countries begin implementing Country-by-Country (CbC) reporting requirements to tackle Base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS).
Taxpayer confidentiality is fundamental for all functions carried out within the tax administration, and the basic principles of data protection set out in domestic and international legislation must be adhered to when collecting, keeping, processing, retaining and sharing taxpayer data. Tax administrations are regularly reviewing their structured processes and procedures to obtain taxpayer information fairly, process tax data only in ways compatible with the purposes for which it was provided initially.
The first session will see different approaches from advanced tax administrations to ensuring the adequate level of governance of the data protection and taxpayer confidentiality. In addition to solutions and concrete measures in place to protect the privacy and security of data, these advanced tax administrations will also present why they are doing this - and what outcome they expect to obtain by doing so.
Tax administrations are now faced with a new challenge: how to make sure that the data they receive from their own taxpayers and external counterparts is sufficiently safe so they can be considered worthy of trust, avoiding any sort of misuse and deviation from the institutional activity.
Some of the measures being applied by tax administrations often include the adoption of internal policies and regulations (e.g. Code of Ethics, Data Protection Code of Conduct, etc.), which create obligations in relation to the confidentiality of official data and the protection of records against unauthorized access, unnecessary use, alteration, destruction or disclosure.
In addition to the tax administration, other state institutions may be charged with monitoring how tax confidentiality is dealt with in practice. This could include supervision by courts of accounts, internal audits, and investigations by anti-corruption agencies or tax police, and may have the capacity to apply sanctions in cases of breach of confidentiality of tax information.
Tax administrations also offer training programmes for staff and managers to ensure that the latter have a proper understanding of their obligations, as well as the procedures and processes in place to protect taxpayer confidentiality.
This second session will explore best practices on how tax administrations are ensuring ethical behaviour and implementing the policies and procedures on confidentiality of tax information in relation to all data processed, managed and controlled.
The key of any discussion involving taxpayer information is how tax administrations can best meet taxpayer expectations about the confidentiality of the information that is shared and provide the assurance that the personal data provided will only be used for the purposes permitted by a range of legislative and administrative provisions.
The development of a fair and sound interaction between tax authorities and taxpayers/customers is of critical importance for the efficiency of the tax systems. The third session will invite experts to highlight the importance of a continuous and structured relation between tax administration and society/stakeholders. Such practices would result in a better tax implementation, more quality services and eventually higher tax compliance. The role and involvement of intermediaries needs to be considered in that framework.
In spite of their duty of confidentiality, tax administrations continue to use the media to publicise general information about tax avoidance schemes which they intend to challenge. This often serves as a useful purpose for alerting unsuspecting taxpayers to the dangers of using such schemes.
The fourth session will address the influence of a good/bad interaction between media and tax administrations on tax governance. Experts on communications could provide an insight on the way a good interaction between tax administration and the media might play a role in earning the public's trust and good governance. A better communication is highly appreciated also from the business side as a means to achieve guidance, legal certainty and trust in tax authorities that it is the foundation for voluntary tax compliance.
The global tax environment is changing, offering modern and efficient technological tools and structures to taxpayers and tax authorities to encourage and facilitate compliance. The use of digital technology has already led to a major transformation of tax administration and to the development of integrated e-government service relationships with the taxpayers. However, technology comes with inherent risks.
As technologies evolve and cyber-crime gets more sophisticated and commonplace, identity theft and online fraud are on the rise, especially during tax season when taxpayers file their taxes online. Several sources highlight the surge in phishing and malware incidents targeting tax filers.
Tax administrations are undertaking measures to monitor the security of their IT systems as well as notifying taxpayers about potential threats involving tax scams and fraudulent communications aiming to steal identity and fraudulently claim a tax refund.
Session 5 will analyse the most common frauds in the new internet era. It will also explore tax scams typology (phishing, phone scams, identity theft, tax return preparer fraud, fake charities, etc), and bring forward most advanced practices and technological solutions detecting and preventing tax scams.
The last session will be an opportunity to examine the implication that an efficient data managing and good tax governance can have for developing countries. New opportunities can be available in the capacity building policy towards developing jurisdictions.
In addition to the technical sessions, the International Conference will offer an ideal opportunity for informal senior level networking and talks during the Networking and Refreshment Breaks.
The IOTA Events App will support the event and will enable delegates to have access to the agenda, speaker & participant profiles, presentations, practical information about the venue, as well as it will offer tools to post questions to the speakers and interact digitally with other participants.
The technical sessions of the Conference will be documented through an IOTA publication (e-book).