BRICS meeting reaches consensus on tax administration

China will chair the next meeting for tax administration heads and experts of BRICS countries in 2022, to promote cooperation on building a tax administrative capacity in a digitalization era, according to a statement of the State Taxation Administration on Friday.

Tax authorities of China, Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa reached a consensus this week to promote cooperation on building tax administration capacity through leveraging new digitalized technologies. They committed to organize workshops, share knowledge and experience and develop common initiatives and collaboration in digital tax administration innovations.

That was a key achievement of the online Meeting of the Heads of Tax Authorities of the BRICS countries, which was chaired by India and concluded on Wednesday.

At the meeting, participants discussed challenges faced by the tax administrations in the digital era, coupled with outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wang Jun, head of China's State Taxation Administration, proposed strengthening cooperation in tax collection and administration among BRICS countries and constantly improving tax certainty.

Wang called on eliminating tax-related disputes, and supporting enterprises' investment and the expansion of businesses. He also suggested deepening the application of big data technology, and continuing to jointly strengthen the crackdown on illegal cross-border tax avoidance.

A communique, which was issued after the BRICS tax meeting, indicated that tax authorities across the world, including BRICS countries, have addressed the challenges of "balancing the need to tackle the concerns of taxpayers by easing compliance and reporting obligations with the mandate to obtain optimum revenues with commendable grit and innovation".

They support the OECD's views on the digital transformation of tax administration, as written in a paper titled "Tax Administration 3.0: The Digital Transformation of Tax Administration", recognizing that more tax authorities are trying to leverage technological advancements to make tax services contactless and virtual due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the communique.