As we approach the end of 2023, IOTA successfully organised its final technical activity under the IOTA 2023 Work Programme. The IOTA Workshop "Virtual Assets: Risks and Opportunities for Tax Administration" was the third fully face-to-face technical event of the year and took place from 12-14, December in Budapest, Hungary. As always, it was a pleasure to have representatives from our international partner organisations including the European Commission, the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration & the OECD – JITSIC along with 50 tax officials from 21 IOTA member countries at the event.

We are pleased to inform you that the Network of Tax Organisations (NTO), one of our international partner organisations, successfully conducted its 6th General Assembly from December 4-5, 2023, in Rome, Italy. This annual event was hosted by the Italian Revenue Agency (Agenzia delle Entrate) and was attended in person and digitally by high-ranking officials from the ten member organisations of NTO including IOTA, ATAF, ATAIC, COTA, CIAT, CREDAF, CATA, PITAA, WATAF, SGATAR.

As 2023 draws to an end, IOTA successfully held one of its last hybrid events from 5-7 December in Budapest, Hungary, under the IOTA 2023 Work Programme Activities. The Forum on the Use of Data from the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) was attended by over 40 tax officials in person and more than 150 online participants from 26 IOTA member countries. Representatives from various international partner organisations such as the OECD, the European Commission DG TAXUD, and the business community including UBS and Standard Chartered Bank also joined the event online.

We are thrilled to be able to announce that the Intra-European Organisation of Tax Administrations (IOTA) will launch a new web portal in January 2024. This website will offer a more immersive user experience and enable our members to access our content more easily.

The Intra-European Organisation of Tax Administrations (IOTA) together with the National Tax and Customs Administration of Hungary, co-hosted a two-and-a-half-day regional consultation on international tax developments at the Mercure Korona Budapest Hotel in Budapest, Hungary, on 28-30 November 2023, in association with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The meeting was attended by 28 tax policymakers from relevant ministries and tax administration officials from 19 jurisdictions.

In recent weeks, IOTA has been engaged in various technical events. From 7th to 9th November 2023, we had the pleasure of hosting the second fully face-to-face technical activity of our 2023 Work Programme, the IOTA Workshop “Contact Centre of the Future: Digital Transformation Best Practices” in Budapest, Hungary. It was a real pleasure seeing some familiar and lots of new faces in the conference room, especially as the last in-person meeting for this activity happened in 2019 – just before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Aside from the insightful and wide-ranging presentations, this Forum was also notable for its friendly and inclusive environment. This friendly environment made it easy to start and join conversations between plenaries so I corralled some attendees from participating member countries and got them to share some thoughts about the event. In the following interviews, they reveal their main takeaways from the three-day activity.