ABSTRACT
While aggressive tax planning gained the media spotlight, the OECD Action Plan acknowledged the developments undertaken by the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes and joined the increasingly strong call for tax transparency. Although suggesting a “holistic approach” to the matter, the wording of the Action Plan soon reveals that the proposal is one-way oriented: by requiring only the taxpayer to be transparent, the OECD leaves aside the much broader meaning transparency can take. This article, after presenting some deserved criticisms of this biased movement both from the perspective of developing countries and general basic taxpayers’ rights, investigates the origins of the notion of tax transparency, where it relates to good governance, to suggest that the concept, in addition to requiring transactions to be disclosed, should be extended to cover the tax administration, the state itself and the tax system as a whole.
SCHOUERI, L. E.; BARBOSA, M. C. Transparency: from tax secrecy to the simplicity and reliability of the tax system. British Tax Review, v. 5, p. 666-681, 2013.