A new direction for assistance in international tax debt collection?

Abstract

After having obtained the relevant information from a registered taxpayer to raise an assessment, a key pillar of tax administration is the collection of any resultant debt. There has been an internationalisation of the relationships between revenue authorities over the last 20 years. This has enabled major changes in domestic taxation legislation and the implementation of bilateral and multilateral treaties which have increased international collaboration in respect of the gathering and sharing of taxation information. However, similar advances in respect of tax debt collection appear not to have occurred to the same scale, despite the implementation of bilateral and multilateral treaties aimed at overcoming the domestic law impediments to assistance in tax debt collection. In fact, there appears to be a shift from a focus on co-operation between tax authorities to a focus on encouraging enhanced domestic tax collection processes, as illustrated by the December 2020 OECD Forum on Tax Administration's Enhancing International Tax Debt Management report. This article explores these developments principally from an Australian perspective.