White House Fact Sheet on the Peru-United States Tax Information Exchange Agreement

The United States and Peru signed a tax information exchange agreement (TIEA) today. Secretary of State James A. Baker III signed on behalf of the United States. Guillermo Larco Cox, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, signed on behalf of Peru.

This agreement will:

permit the exchange of tax records, bank statements, and other information in order to uncover illicit drug profits, trace drug money-laundering, and generally to further civil and criminal tax investigations;

encourage prosecution for tax evasion as an effective way to put drug dealers behind bars;

improve tax compliance, through exchanges of technical know-how, development of new audit techniques, identification of new areas of noncompliance, and joint studies of noncompliance areas.

The agreement is responsive on a bilateral basis to the pledge in the Declaration of Cartagena to tighten monitoring of financial transactions. We are discussing similar arrangements with other countries.