Enhancing the quality and use of internationally exchanged tax information in Ireland and Croatia - European Commission
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Enhancing the quality and use of internationally exchanged tax information in Ireland and Croatia

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Supporting reforms to ensure efficient and effective revenue administration and public financial management

Funding Programme
Year
  • 2024

Enhancing the quality and use of internationally exchanged tax information in Ireland and Croatia

The Commission provides technical support to the Office of the Revenue Commissioners in Ireland (Irish tax administration) and the Croatian Tax Administration to enhance their implementation of the Council Directive on Administrative Cooperation in the field of taxation (DAC), particularly with regards to the automatic exchange of information (AEOI) with other EU Member States.

The project will help the Irish and Croatian beneficiary authorities in their fight against aggressive tax planning, tax fraud, tax evasion and tax avoidance.

Context

The fight against cross-border tax fraud, evasion and avoidance is high on the EU tax agenda, of which the Council Directive on Administrative Cooperation in the field of taxation (DAC) is a critical pillar. Yet, the mandatory tax data exchange under DAC results in huge volumes of incoming and outgoing data, which is often of substandard quality, and which tends to be underused by tax administrations across the EU. The European Court of Auditors highlighted these issues in its Special Report 03/2021, recommending better monitoring, data quality, and risk analysis.

The technical support project will help the Irish and Croatian beneficiary authorities improve their practices and capabilities to efficiently use incoming DAC AEOI data, ensure outgoing DAC AEOI data quality, and monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of DAC AEOI data.

Support delivered

The project commenced in December 2024 and is expected to be completed by November 2026. At the end of the 24-month project, the two beneficiary authorities will each have tailored outputs targeting the quality, use and performance monitoring of DAC AEOI data. Specifically, expected outputs are:

  • Diagnostics reports (“As Is”) on incoming and outgoing DAC AEOI data.
  • Design reports (“To-Be”) on incoming DAC AEOI data, and for the Croatian beneficiary authority a design report on enhancing the quality of outgoing DAC AEOI data.
  • Recommendations on making better use of the incoming DAC AEOI data and on ensuring data quality of outgoing DAC AEOI data
  • Implementation strategy and an action plan.
  • Operational manuals, Trainings and training materials
  • For the Irish beneficiary authority, recommendations on a comprehensive performance monitoring framework and practical operational guidelines.

The project is funded by the European Union via the Technical Support Instrument and implemented by EY in cooperation with SG REFORM.

Results expected

The technical support is expected to improve the beneficiary authorities’ implementation of DAC. In particular:

  • Enhanced capabilities: The beneficiary authorities have improved capabilities to implement DAC AEOI and shared lessons internally.
  • Improved usage: The beneficiary authorities use the received DAC AEOI data more frequently and in a more effective manner.
  • Higher data quality: The beneficiary authorities send higher quality DAC AEOI data to other EU Member States.
  • Improved monitoring: The Irish beneficiary authority monitors and evaluates DAC AEOI data quality, use, and outcomes in a more structured and comprehensive manner.
  • Improved cooperation: as an ancillary outcome, cross-country learning and benefits to EU Member States from higher quality DAC AEOI data transmitted by Ireland and Croatia.

The technical support would over the middle- to long-term contribute to a higher extent of fair taxation, tax collection, fair market competition and economic growth.