In the framework of the Public Finance area of the EUROsociAL Programme, financed by the European Union, civil servants from the Directorate-General of Internal Revenue (DGII) of El Salvador's Ministry of Finance visited the Central Information Team (ECI) of Spain's National Fraud Investigation Office from 15th to 17th July 2015.

The Global Forum for Transparency and Information Exchange for Tax Purposes brings together the jurisdictions and OECD members and non-members that have made a commitment to transparency and information exchange, and have worked together to develop international standards for transparency and information exchange in tax matters.

El Salvador became a member of the Global Forum on Transparency and Information Exchange for Tax Purposes in 2011. The Salvadoran Ministry of Finance enjoyed the support of the EUROsociAL II Programme in this process. A technical assistance mission for this purpose was carried out from 24th to 28th November 2014 to the Directorate-General of Internal Revenue (DGII) of the Ministry of Finance aimed at helping the Salvadoran authorities understand the results of the Phase 1 evaluation, and to train the technical team in charge of representing El Salvador before the Peer Review Group (PRG) held in Paris in February 2015. The support provided by EUROsociAL represented an important step because, as a result of this evaluation, El Salvador moved to the next stage in the review process, which evaluates information exchange at the practical level.

Having passed Phase 1 in July 2015, an exchange visit was made by a team of DGII employees to the National Fraud Investigation Office of the Spanish Tax Administration Agency (AEAT) for the purpose of learning about the best practices applied by Spain in the area of information exchange agreements for tax purposes so that this knowledge and experience could be used as inputs during the Phase 2 evaluation.

On the part of the AEAT, the working sessions were led by Elena de las Morenas, Head of the ECI, and Carmen Arribas Haro, Inspector-Adviser of the ECI, and included the participation of various AEAT specialists and inspectors. On the part of the Salvadoran Ministry of Finance, Xenia Carolina Guillen de García, Head of the Legal Studies Department, and Juan Ramón Marín Valencia, Head of the Transfer Prices Department, participated.

As a result of this visit, the two civil servants from the Salvadoran Ministry of Finance had the opportunity to learn about the internal functioning of the Central Information Team in terms of data collection in its different phases: gathering, inputting, and subsequent applications. Likewise, they learned about the functioning and organisation of the international information exchange unit for the purpose of using it as a model for proposing the creation of the Information Exchange Office in the Salvadoran tax administration.

Lastly, they had the opportunity to analyse the internal documents used and the practical application of international regulatory requirements in the area of information exchange.

This activity is part of the Voluntary Compliance with Tax Obligations action of the Public Finance area of the EUROsociAL Programme, financed by the European Union and coordinated by the FIIAPP, in which Spain's Institute for Tax Studies and the CIAT are acting as operational partners.