Senior international tax officials met at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on Wednesday to discuss responses to the Panama Papers.
Tax authorities are notoriously reluctant to share information, but the sheer scale of the Panama Papers - 11.5 million documents covering 210,000 companies in 21 offshore jurisdictions - has forced them to co-operate.
Nearly everything about the meeting was secret. The OECD would not reveal the number of participants, though press reports estimated that there were 28 officials in attendance.
The Irish Revenue Commissioners sent one or more representatives, but would not divulge numbers or identities.
“Some of the countries coming here do not even want their presence known,” said an informed source.
“If you’re doing an investigation, maybe there’s a big fish in a given country who feels personally threatened or at risk.
“You wouldn’t want to say, ‘Hey, we’re at the OECD getting the Panama Papers information.’”
The meeting was organised by the Joint International Tax Shelter Information and Collaboration (Jitsic) network.
The 46 countries who belong to the OECD’s Forum on Tax Administration are potential members of any Jitsic “project”.
They include the 34 members of the OECD, plus members of the G20 who are not in the club for the world's most developed countries.
The number of participants in a given Jitsic “project” can range from two to 46.
“We are only aware of what has been reported in the press,” the OECD said, denying it had access to the Panama Papers.
Revenue authorities from at least 10 countries, including the State, have reportedly approached members of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in relation to the papers but were told: “The ICIJ is not an arm of law enforcement and is not an agent of the government.”
However, a source at the OECD insisted data-sharing had motivated the meeting.
“Somebody has the data. That’s the whole reason they had the meeting,” the source said.
The OECD’s one-page, post-meeting statement said it discussed “opportunites for obtaining data, co-operation and information-sharing.”
Mandate
The G20 gave the OECD a mandate to fight tax evasion in 2009.
It was subsequently invested with another mission, to thwart corporations shifting profits to avoid tax.
But the OECD is not privy to taxpayer specific information.
“If one of the Jitsic countries says, ‘Let me show you what we’ve got so far,’ that’s when OECD officials leave the room,” an OECD source explained.
Jitsic is headed by Chris Jordan, commissioner for the Australian tax office.
He says Jitsic members share “a global mindset for tackling tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance”.
Mark Konza, head of international tax in Australia, chaired Wednesday's meeting.
Mr Jordan told the Australian Financial Review that the objective of the meeting was “to get the bigger picture . . . A number of countries have got slices or pieces of the data and that’s been very useful, but really, the start of the conversation is to work out who’s got what, how we can pool that information and start to work together”.
The OECD said follow-up action will be ensured by national tax administrations.
“It will be devolved to more operational people in the Jitsic network,” Mr Jordan said. “It’s data analytics people we need.”
Meanwhile, the French finance minister Michel Sapin told a press conference the Panama Papers have prompted "a burst of generosity" amongst tax evaders, who are coming forward to the STDR, the service set up nearly three years ago by the French to encourage those with offshore accounts to confess and negotiate settlements.
A spokesperson at the Revenue Commissioners said it was not yet clear whether the Panama Papers will have a similar effect in the State.
“Our message is: ‘Come to us before we come to you, because we will,’” she said.
