Belgium and Panama may start negotiations with a view to achieving automatic exchange of tax data. This emerges from a meeting held this morning (Thursday) between the Minister of Finance, Johan Van Overtveldt, and a Panamanian government delegation.
The meeting on Thursday morning, very much hinged upon international tax transparency. This comes after the revelations, a few months ago, of the large-scale tax evasion measures organised through the Panamanian legal firm Mossack Fonseca.
“We live in an era where fraud and tax evasion will not be tolerated - and rightly so,” the Minister of Finance declared following the meeting. Recent measures taken at national level “are not sufficient if they do not go hand in hand with thorough information exchange at an international level.”
The Panamanian delegation, was led by the Deputy Minister for Finance, Eyda Varela de Chinchilla and the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Luis Miguel Hincapié.
They agreed to start negotiations with a view to securing automatic exchange of tax data. Mr Van Overtveldt welcomed “a considerable step towards more tax transparency in the fight against fraud and tax evasion.”
(Source: Belga)
