“Today’s announcement of co‑ordinated international action on cryptoassets is a major step forward, marking another important milestone towards the widespread and co-ordinated approach to combat tax evasion through greater transparency and exchange of information,” Secretary-General Cormann said.

“We strongly welcome the extensive support being shown for quick action to make the international exchange of information collected under the OECD standard on cryptoasset reporting a reality. The international community can count on the OECD and the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes to ensure that the tax transparency architecture remains both up-to-date and effective going forward.”

The Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) is a key component of the International Standards for Automatic Exchange of Information in Tax Matters developed by the OECD under a G20 mandate. It provides for the automatic exchange of tax-relevant information on cryptoassets and comes against the backdrop of a rapid adoption of the use of cryptoassets for a wide range of investment and financial uses.

The J5 is comprised of Australian Taxation Office (ATO), the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), the Fiscale Inlichtingen- en Opsporingsdienst (FIOD), HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), and Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI).

The alliance, named the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement (J5), will focus on building international enforcement capacity by sharing information and intelligence, enhancing operational capability by piloting new approaches and conducting joint operations to bring those who enable and facilitate offshore tax crime to account. 

J5 formed in response to a call to action from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development for countries to do more to tackle the enablers of tax crime. 

Following their first meeting, J5 brought together experts in tax and other financial crimes from each of the five member countries. They developed plans and identified opportunities to pursue cyber criminals and enablers of transnational crime. 

Don Fort, Chief of IRS-CI said: 

“We cannot continue to operate in the same ways we have in the past, siloing our information from the rest of the world while organized criminals and tax cheats manipulate the system and exploit vulnerabilities for their personal gain. The J5 aims to break down those walls, build upon individual best practices, and become an operational group that is forward-thinking and can pressurize the global criminal community in ways we could not achieve on our own.”