OECD's Forum of Tax Administrators (FTA) held their fourth meeting in South Africa on 10 and 11 January 2008. A Communiqué and a report on the findings of the study into the role of Tax Intermediaries was issued.

The main conclusions and recommendations which emerge from the study are included in the Communiqué. The Communiqué and report on the findings are available from the OECD website, or alternatively on the Irish Revenue website, by clicking http://www.revenue.ie/index.htm?/publications/oecd2008.htm.

It was acknowledged that relationships between revenue bodies, taxpayers and tax intermediaries differ widely between FTA countries; and that these relationships are shaped by different administrative, legal and cultural frameworks. Therefore, it is up to each country to decide how to apply the recommendations in their own context.

ICAI, through the Global Accounting Alliance (our colleagues in England and Wales, Scotland, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and South Africa), had made a major submission to the OECD when the report was in the course of preparation. The genesis of the report had been a statement from the OECD Revenue Authorities (known as the Seoul declaration) which had more or less identified accountants as the root of all evil, evil in this case being tax planning, and had breezily disregarded the role of accountants in the compliance process and the collection of fiduciary taxes. Against this hostile backround, we argued against any proposals which would disregard national law and practice, “risk rate” individual firms of accountants, or ignore the responsibilities of Revenue to provide a decent service with properly trained staff. These arguments would appear to have been largely accepted in the final OECD report.

A copy of ICAI's press release is reproduced at Section 2.03.