Addressing the Inter-American Centre of Tax Administrations (CIAT) General Assembly on the island earlier this week, Mascoll said that the Land Tax, Inland Revenue and the Customs and Excise Departments would be merged to concentrate enforcement and boost revenues.

"The aim is to remove existing administrative fragmentation in the system, which proves to be contributing to non-compliance, improve co-ordination between functions, including efforts of enforcement, as well as to improve the delivery of service to the customer," he stated.

He went on to observe that: "The practice of trying to escape paying taxes is even more sophisticated and elusive, where corporate entities such as multi-national corporations or global enterprises misuse tax treaties and use a system of transfer pricing that go contrary to international legitimate tax minimisation arrangements."

The CIAT conference is being attended by 135 delegates from approximately 37 countries, who will discuss ideas and network to develop effective taxation policies. The theme of the 2007 General Assembly is ‘Key Structural Aspects of the Tax Administrations’. Over the four-day meeting, three key aspects of tax administration are being discussed, namely: The Organisational Structure; Models of Relationship of the Central Tax Administrations with other Collection Institutions, Structural Change in Modern Tax Administrations, and Human Resources Management.