EUROsociAL promotes experience exchange in Buenos Aires to leverage the work of the Accounting and Tax Support Centres (NAFs), which are now in operation in 330 universities in 10 Latin American countries
Alberto owns a shoe repair shop in Mexico. Until recently he worked off the books. “I hadn’t registered because I thought it was complicated and that they were going to charge me lots of fees, but my nephew invited me to his university and, there, they explained to me why it was to my advantage to register and helped me calculate my tax; they also showed me that I wouldn’t have to pay anything the first year”. Alberto is one of the users of the Accounting and Tax Support Centres (NAFs) in operation in 330 universities in 10 countries in Latin America.
The NAFs are a university social responsibility experience created by the Brazilian tax agency. Through the NAFs, the agency trains students on tax matters and professional ethics so that, in their community-service or work-study hours, they can provide free advice to low-income individuals and small business owners. The community benefits from assistance in resolving basic tax questions, while the agency fulfils its role of offering civic and tax education. The university, for its part, strengthens its link to the community and provides its students with tax expertise at no cost.
Providing continuity to the work of EUROsociAL II—funded by the EU, as is EUROsociAL+—which was the vehicle for promoting expansion of the NAFs in Latin America and creating a network (http://rednaf.educacionfiscal.org/), this new phase of the programme seeks to leverage the experience by strengthening its social nature, providing training in values to the students, and consolidation of its monitoring and evaluation tools.
With these objectives, a meeting to discuss the best NAF experiences was held in Buenos Aires, from 10 to 13 July, organised by the Democratic Governance area of EUROsociAL+. The event was coordinated by FIIAPP and the Federal Administration of Public Revenue (AFIP) of Argentina, a country that is starting to implement NAFs. This activity included the participation of representatives of the tax agencies and universities of Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil and Mexico. The inauguration of the workshops was attended by the European Union Ambassador to Argentina, Aude Maio-Coliche; the Federal Administrator of Public Revenue of Argentina, Alberto Abad; and the General Director of International Cooperation of the Foreign Ministry of Argentina, Ana Ciuti.
During the different sessions, key issues for the development of NAFS were discussed. 1) Mechanisms for partnerships between tax agencies and universities; 2) Training of students; 3) Strategies for vulnerable groups; 4) How to introduce the gender perspective; 5) Monitoring and evaluation strategies; 6) Communication strategies.
An entire day was dedicated to specific work with Colombia to develop a strategy to promote tax culture in post-conflict zones around NAFs. Representatives of the Directorate of National Taxes and Customs (DIAN) learned about the AFIP’s teaching and communication strategies and were able to contemplate the joint work this institution is doing with the Government Administration of Public Revenue in the city of Buenos Aires in Villa 31, a district with high rates of informal work.
Borja Díaz, técnico senior de Gobernanza Democrática / Senior Officer of Democratic Governance. EUROsociAL+
