The government is warning that if the agreement on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters is not ratified, the country is at risk of being included in the lists of non-cooperating countries.
The Guatemalan Ministry of Finance describes as "indispensable" the ratification by legislative of the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters adopted by the Council of Europe and member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
As the region gets ready to start complying with the US law FATCA, OECD countries are already working on a Single Global Standard for automatic exchange of information.
FATCA could now be joined by the European OECD countries Single Global Standard for Automatic Clearing of CRS Information (Gatca), "... allowing tax information on their residents to be shared between them."
The asymmetry of investment flows makes the application of the concept of world income inevitably generates more revenue to the states of powerful economies than those of small ones.
In his opinion piece in Elfinancierocr.com, Manrique Blen points to the difficulties that countries with small economies face when they sign double taxation treaties, as, depending on the characteristics of the signed agreements, they can stop receiving tax revenues that they could have received had they not joined the treaty.
The Government will ask Congress to hasten the adoption of a law on bank secrecy, after an unofficial list of tax havens has been released in France which includes Guatemala.
According to President Pérez Molina, the country's inclusion in the French list "is a unilateral decision" of the French Government, because "Guatemala has not approved bank secrecy."
The government wants to make progress in meeting OECD requirements in order to bring the country out of the list of "gray" countries regarding tax information exchange.
An article in Prensalibre.com reports that Pavel Centeno, finance minister, said that "Guatemala has not advanced in the work to meet all the demands of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), since one of the points pending is the opening of bank secrecy for tax issues, it risks staying on the gray list of non transparent countries. "
Guatemala has created the Trade Transparency Unit in order to exchange information with U.S. Customs to detect illegal activity.
The Tax Authority (SAT) in Guatemala will exchange data with the Department of Homeland Security in the United States, said Miguel Gutierrez, head of the SAT.
To that end, the Trade Transparency Unit (UTC) has been created, to exchange information with U.S. customs better control trade.
The Ministry of Finance in Guatemala has signed agreements to exchange tax information with Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands.
These agreements are aimed at facilitating the exchange of information in order to better control the fiscal responsibilities of individuals and companies in Guatemala and those countries.
In the new list of countries which France has categorized as tax havens France does not include Panama nor Costa Rica, however Guatemala remains along with seven other jurisdictions.
In updated list of tax havens, which has not been reviewed since 2010 the following countries were excluded: Anguilla, Belize, Costa Rica, Dominica, Grenada, the Cook Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Liberia, Oman, Panama, St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
In January, the first Convention of Tax Information Exchange could be signed with Australia.
In order for this convention, and others are under negotiation, to be implemented, Congress needs to approve the banking secrecy law, which would allow access to accounts relating to tax matters, a requirement of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
If Congress does not approve the bank secrecy law, the country will remain on list of countries which do not contribute to fiscal transparency.
In light of a visit by representatives of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Victor Mancilla, head of the Superintendency of Banks (SIB), reiterated to Congress the urgent need to pass the Law on Banks and Financial Groups, which would mean the elimination of bank secrecy and the need to sign agreements on tax information exchange with at least 12 countries.
The country known for its canal is making progress toward its objective to sign at least 12 DTA in order to comply with the OECD requirements and come off the organization's list of tax havens.
Signing double taxation agreements (DTAs) has the added benefit that it may make it easier for the countries with which the information sharing agreements are reached to invest in Panama.
Costa Rica and Guatemala were upgraded to the "Gray List", whereas Panama remains listed as a "Tax Haven".
A September 24th report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), shows progress in the implementation of transparency and fiscal information exchange standards.
Panama remains cataloged as "a tax haven committed to adopt international fiscal standards, but who has not implemented them substantially".
For this to occur, it was enough to send a letter to the OECD, agreeing to adopt the international standard for the exchange of tax information.
Following the decision by the G20 to act against nations that fail to cooperate in the international exchange of tax information in their last meeting in London, Costa Rica had to act quickly to get out of the "black list" of countries that were not committed to adopting this standard.
They are included in an OECD list of countries that have not implemented the international standard for exchanging tax information.
However, the status of each of these countries is different for the OECD. Panama and Guatemala have committed themselves to the implementation of the international standard for the exchange of tax information, but with the difference that Panama was included in a list of tax havens in the 1998 OECD Report while Guatemala was not blacklisted.