NEW DELHI: At least EUR 20.1 billion additional revenues have been reported through exchange of information (EOI) by 22 Asian countries since 2009, the first progress report of Tax Transparency in Asia 2023 said even as India stressed on the need to further expand the scope of such exchanges.
India wants to expand the scope of common reporting standard at the G20 to include non-financial assets such as real estate properties through automatic exchange of information (AEOI), revenue secretary Sanjay Malhotra said on Thursday in New Delhi at the launch of the report.
Speaking at a meeting of the ‘Asia Initiative of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes’, he said scope of AEOI should be expanded to include information that could also be used for other non-tax law enforcing purposes.
“Asia is levelling the playing field towards more tax transparency, but commitment and progress are still needed to achieve its full potential,” the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes said in a statement on Thursday.
All 22 Asian members of the Global Forum are implementing the transparency and exchange of information on request (EOIR) standard and 16 of them are committed to starting automatic exchange of financial account information (AEOI) exchanges by 2024, it said.
The 22 members are Azerbaijan, Armenia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Georgia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
“Overall, Asian members have reported at least EUR 20.1 billion additional revenues linked to EOI since 2009. With more Asian members starting to use EOIR to support domestic investigations and to implement AEOI, additional revenues are expected to be generated in the coming years,” it said.
Despite wide adherence to the international standards, their effective use remains uneven in Asia, it said. Many Asian countries are not yet members of the Global Forum and some jurisdictions still make few EOI requests or have not yet committed to implement the AEOI standard by a specific date, it added.
Through the Asia Initiative, launched at the end of 2021 under the Indonesian G20 Presidency, 16 Asian countries had signed up to the Bali Declaration by the end of 2022. Their commitment to achieve full EOI potential for the region has set an example for other countries in the region to follow, it added.
Established in 2021, the Asia Initiative has a very ambitious plan of activities, covering the implementation of the international tax transparency standards and the use of all forms of administrative co-operation to fight tax evasion and other illicit financial flows, the statement quoting co-chairs of the Asia Initiative – India’s revenue secretary Malhotra and Suryo Utomo, of Indonesia, said.
“While acknowledging the various levels of EOI maturity across the region, the Asia Initiative aims to benefit all. We look forward to welcoming more Asian members for mutual contributions and benefits to the work of the Initiative,” the co-chairs said in the joint statement.
“We are looking forward to helping further develop local capacities, to achieve more transparent tax systems for the benefit of all Asian countries and their citizens,” said Zayda Manatta, head of the Global Forum Secretariat. The 167-member Global Forum aims to put an end to “bank secrecy and tax evasion” through global tax co-operation.