The Fourth Belt and Road Initiative Tax Administration Cooperation Forum (BRITACOF) themed “Improving Tax Environment” was convened in Tbilisi Georgia on 11 September 2023. After three days of discussions, the fourth BRITACOF dropped the curtain with all agenda fulfilled and six outcomes released on September 13. Mr. Wang Daoshu, Executive Secretary of the BRITACOM Secretariat introduced the contents of outcomes, namely Joint Statement of the Fourth BRITACOF, Action Plan for Improving Tax Environment (2023-2025), Improving Tax Environment--Best Practice, Improving Tax Environment--Theme Day Events, BRITACEG Curriculum System Version 1.0, and Annual Report of the BRITACOM (2023).

The Joint Statement,which consists of five parts, including overview, positions, outcomes and objectives, elaborates on the achievements of the Belt and Road Initiative over the past 10 years, recognizes the contributions made by the BRITACOM over the past four years, and reaffirms the importance and necessity for all parties to build consensus and strengthen cooperation under the framework of the Nur-Sultan Action Plan (2022-2024). In the future, all parties will continue to strengthen cooperation under the framework of the BRITACOM to build a growth-friendly tax environment.

The Action Plan sets out the cooperation visions and practical initiatives of all parties from 2023 to 2025, which mainly include building a rule-of-law and an intelligent tax environment, enhancing the transparency of tax information, streamlining tax compliance, continuing the theme day events, and promoting the construction of the BRITACEG Curriculum System.

Improving Tax Environment--Best Practice,a collection of 18 articles have been collected and complied to introduce the practices of relevant countries (regions) in improving tax environment and provide reference for the tax administrations of the BRI jurisdictions. At present, the BRITACOM has edited the above experience sharing into a special issue, providing high-quality resources for mutual learning.

Since 2022, under the task force on Improving Tax Environment of the Nur-Sultan Action Plan (2022-2024), BRITACOM has organized five online theme day events for tax authorities, focusing on the basic tax systems and their implementation of different regions, so as to open up the channels of communication between the tax authorities and enterprises, and obtaining positive responses from all parties. Improving Tax Environment--Theme Day Events, which is a 4-minute video clip of highlight moments of the events to show the fruitful outcomes of relevant parties in the construction of BRITACOM.

Focusing on the functions of the tax administration and the responsibilities of tax officials, we have designed and released the BRITACEG Curriculum System Version 1.0,offering 65 courses with Tax System, Tax Administration and Digitalization, Tax Environment and Taxpayer Service, and Tax Cooperation as four pillar themes. As of August 2023, 63 courses have been completed and put on line through the website of the Belt and Road Taxation Academy.

The Annual Report summarizes the construction of the BRITACOM since the Third BRITACOF (from September 2022 to the present) in eight aspects, we gave an overview of the third BRITACOF, the implementation of the Nur-Sultan Action Plan (2022-2024), the operation of the BRITACOM Secretariat, as well as the development of the BRITACEG,demonstrating the achievements of the BRITACOM with the active participation of all parties over the past year.

On the closing ceremony, it was also declared the Inland Revenue Department of Hong Kong, China will host the fifth BRITACOF in September 2024.