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(Ecofin Agency) – African nations grappling with substantial financial losses from tax evasion and other illicit financial flows have ramped up their efforts in tax information requests.
In 2023, African countries significantly bolstered their capacities to mobilize national revenues through information exchanges for tax purposes. According to the latest report from the Africa Initiative on Transparency in Taxation, these efforts resulted in over €2.2 billion ($2.4 billion) in additional revenues (taxes, interest, and penalties), primarily collected by seven countries leveraging received information.
Unveiled alongside a joint summit on tax transparency in Lomé, Togo, the report highlights “exceptional developments in the use of information exchange” among the continent’s nations.
Du 03 au 05.6.24 à Lomé, les 39 pays membres du Forum Mondial se réunissent pour la 15e réunion de l’Initiative Afrique.
Objectif : faire le bilan des 10 ans d’avancées partagées sur la transparence fiscale et se projeter vers l’avenir.#oecd #ataf #otr#togo pic.twitter.com/S3S727omE4— Office Togolais des Recettes-OTR (@otr_togo) June 3, 2024
The report notes that in 2023 alone, this additional mobilization surpassed the cumulative total of extra revenues collected between 2009 and 2022, which amounted to €1.6 billion.
A government official from West Africa said African countries understand the seriousness of the problem with more advanced tax evasion and more illegal money moving around.
The report further underscores that in 2023, a record number of 20 African countries submitted requests. In total, African countries made the highest number of information exchange requests ever recorded, marking the continent as a net sender (where total requests sent exceeded those received) for the second time since the Initiative’s inception in 2014. In practice, states formulated a total of 888 requests, marking a 40% increase.
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