{"id":11939,"date":"2012-06-29T00:02:17","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T22:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/06\/africa-money-tax-evasion-fight-starts-to-bare-its-fangs\/"},"modified":"2012-06-29T00:02:17","modified_gmt":"2012-06-28T22:02:17","slug":"africa-money-tax-evasion-fight-starts-to-bare-its-fangs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/africa-money-tax-evasion-fight-starts-to-bare-its-fangs\/","title":{"rendered":"AFRICA MONEY-Tax evasion fight starts to bare its fangs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Ed Stoddard<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">JOHANNESBURG, June 28<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; Some of the money Africa<br \/>\nloses through artful officials diverting cash into offshore tax<br \/>\nhavens could be recovered after a push by the world&#8217;s richest<br \/>\ncountries to share tax data.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The initiative, unveiled quietly in a report last week by<br \/>\nthe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development<br \/>\n(OECD), embraces the notion that countries should automatically<br \/>\nshare data on taxable income and assets.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>It sounds like arcane accounting talk but it boils down to<br \/>\nthis: if countries automatically share such as information, tax<br \/>\ndodgers will find it far more difficult to hide their earnings<br \/>\nfrom their governments.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Among other things this will help reduce Africa&#8217;s reliance<br \/>\non foreign aid since the region could collect more of the<br \/>\nrevenue that it generates, cutting its need for assistance.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Automatic exchange as a tool to counter offshore<br \/>\nnon-compliance has a number of benefits,&#8221; the report, &#8216;Tackling<br \/>\nOffshore Tax Evasion,&#8217; said in what some commentators are<br \/>\nhailing as a sea-change in the OECD&#8217;s position on the issue.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>This is because when it comes to agreements regulating<br \/>\nissues of tax compliance between countries, the Paris-based OECD<br \/>\nclub of rich nations has long contended the &#8220;internationally<br \/>\nagreed standard&#8221; for information exchange was &#8220;on request.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Critics have called this approach toothless because a<br \/>\ngovernment would have to know in advance what it was looking for<br \/>\nif it suspected one of its residents or citizens of avoiding<br \/>\ntaxes by moving or keeping money or investments offshore.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Making such information automatic gives fangs to the fight<br \/>\nagainst tax evasion, which has been sucking poor regions dry.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ed Stoddard JOHANNESBURG, June 28 (Reuters) &#8211; Some of the money Africa loses through artful officials diverting cash into offshore tax havens could be recovered after a push by the world&#8217;s richest countries to share tax data. The initiative, unveiled quietly in a report last week by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-11939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}