Costa Rica leads Central America in international tax assistance

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Costa Rica leads Central America in international tax assistance

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Costa Rica has become the first Central American country to sign the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters.

The multilateral agreement was developed jointly by the Council of Europe and the OECD. Last week India ratified the convention.

The convention provides governments with a tool for strengthening international tax cooperation in the fight against offshore tax evasion and avoidance. It provides a multilateral basis for a wide variety of administrative assistance, including information exchange on request, automatic exchange of information, simultaneous tax examinations and assistance in tax collection.

Costa Rica’s Vice Minister of Finance, Rowland Espinosa, signed the convention in Brasilia while participating in the meeting of the Peer Review Group of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes.

"Costa Rica's signing of the Convention demonstrates our firm commitment to tax transparency and the international standards for exchange of information. Costa Rica still has important work to do to implement the standards, and we view today's signing as an important step towards this goal", said Espinosa.

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