1st NTO Technical Conference Announcement
Conference Announcement
The Network of Tax Organisations (NTO) will host its 1st Technical Conference from 19 to 21 of October in a virtual format. Under the theme “Building stronger partnerships to fight tax-related illicit financial flows”, the event will bring together over 400 participants from around the world to analyse current best practices on the global level.
An inclusive platform and interactive environment will be provided over the course of three days, to enable in-depth exchange of experiences and co-creation with more than 30 speakers. Presentations, interactive panels, breakout sessions and workshops will be held in English, with simultaneous interpretation in Spanish and French. The conference is intended to be a starting point for continued discussions on strategies to widen collaboration in tackling tax crime. The focus will be set on advocating and promoting international, south-south, and inter-institutional cooperation between revenue administrations, law enforcement authorities and other governmental institutions.
During the 4th NTO Council Meeting in Paris – which took place on 27 January 2020 – tax and crime, including tax-related illicit financial flows, were identified as a pressing current issue and therefore chosen as the central topic to be tackled during the 1st NTO Technical Conference.
NTO adopts a broad definition of Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs), as the movement of money or capital, that have earned, transferred or utilised either from illegal activities. This also includes, among others, activities that involve organised crime, corruption and terrorism or activities that are socially unpalatable and detrimental to sustainable development. Thus, it is a major interest of tax administrations – those mainly responsible for implementing and enforcing complex international standards and regulations regarding tax crime – to cooperate with other governmental institutions nationally as well as globally in order to prevent and combat tax-related crimes. Additionally, such cooperation fosters the implementation of the target 16.4 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which addresses the need to reduce illicit financial and arms flows.
Curbing IFFs can support to recover faster and better from the Covid-19 crisis and build more resilient economies, as it contributes to increasing the fiscal space. For instance, in 2020, the United Nations Trade Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) “Trade and Development report 2020” estimated that revenue losses, caused just by tax-related IFFs, are in the range of $49-$193 billion, accounting for 2.3 per cent of combined GDPs in Latin America and the Caribbean and in Africa.
The 1st NTO Technical Conference will offer the opportunity to identify synergies between policymakers and tax practitioners on the latest international developments in tackling tax-related IFFs as well as to explore the potential for more global, robust cooperation. A summary document containing key take-aways, interviews with keynote speakers and central messages from panels will be published on the NTO website after the event, aiming to deepen the discussions among tax administrations, thereby enhancing global efforts.
For further information about the 1st NTO Technical Conference, please refer to the website of the 1st NTO Technical Conference. During the three-day conference, the following topics will be addressed:
- DAY 1: INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS AND EXISTING CHALLENGES – Nature of Illicit Financial Flows and their impact on tax administration activities; international resolutions and the response from tax administrations to fight IFFs.
- DAY 2: BEST PRACTICES OF INTER-INSTITUTIONAL COOPERATION ON THE FIGHT AGAINST ILLICIT FINANCIAL FLOWS – Best practices and case studies in the context of inter-institutional and international, national and regional cooperation on the fight against illicit economic-financial phenomena.
- DAY 3: LEASONS LEARNT AND WAY FORWARD – Lessons learnt: needs for improvement in economic-financial investigations; International development efforts in ensuring developing countries’ access to global tax initiatives; the role of the NTO and tax administrations in the fight against IFFs.
Contact
In case of any question, please contact nto.conference@taxcompact.net.
Please note that participation in the conference is by invitation only.
