16th OECD Global Forum Plenary Meeting will be held in Portugal

Portugal will host the next OECD Global Forum Plenary Meeting on transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes. The 16th Plenary Meeting will be held in November 2023 and the choice of Portugal as host shows the country’s progress in matters of transparency and exchange of tax information.

In the eight peer review reports on exchange of information requests (EOIR), published by the OECD Global Forum on 16 August, Portugal improved on all aspects of the review when compared to 2015, having raised its general rating from Largely Compliant to Compliant.

The 15th OECD Global Forum Plenary Meeting, where the upcoming host was picked, took place from 8 to 11 November in Seville. The Portuguese State was represented by the Secretary of State for Tax Affairs, António Mendonça Mendes, who signed on 9 November two multilateral arrangements for the automatic exchange of information on income from digital platforms and reportable or opaque offshore structures under the Common Reporting Standard (CSR), respectively.

The agreements signed ensure a transparency and cooperation framework that allows for the automatic exchange of information between countries and jurisdictions on two levels:

• Information collected by digital platform operators, such as mobility or short-term lease platforms (airbnb type). The goal is for transactions and income collected on the offer of goods and services on these platforms is reported and exchanged automatically between States and jurisdictions

• Information collected by agents, whether consultants, attorneys or others, that design, promote, offer assistance or identify structures or mechanisms created to avoid the common reporting standard or to avoid identifying beneficiaries or assets held in offshores.

In total, 28 countries and jurisdictions signed the multilateral arrangements, ramping up multilateralism and international cooperation for tax purposes.