Specialized Panamanian tax law journal

Gaceta Fiscal 2005

Panama’s scholarly tax law journal

by Eric Jackson

The difference between development and underdevelopment is not just measured in Gross Domestic Product, the state of various infrastructures or the percentages of the population engaged in the manufacturing or service sectors. It also matters whether ordinary people have been sufficiently exposed to libraries to have acquired proper library etiquette, and whether the better educated members of the population know what a world class library is and how to use it. The state of academic and professional publishing is another indication.

Due to a number of economic, cultural, political and historical factors, Panama is woefully underdeveloped in the field of scholarly publishing. Yes, we are a tiny market, a nation of fewer than three million souls with a national academia composed of not enough people with doctoral degrees to produce very many respectable peer-reviewed publications. But we are, after all, The Crossroads of the World and could be such in an intellectual sense as well, were we to set that goal for ourselves.

National peculiarities can make the situation worse. For example, Panama has its own unique accounting system, which has withstood an effort in recent years to switch to international principles. There just aren’t that many people in the world who are experts in Panamanian accounting.

Yet it turns out that one of this country’s few scholarly journals was celebrated at the headquarters of the Colegio de Contadores Pubilicos Autorizados at a July 28 gathering of CPAs and tax attorneys at which this reporter was the only person wearing neither a suit nor a dress.

The publication being feted on this night was the Gaceta Fiscal 2005, the second annual edition of a tax law journal whose principal editor, Carlos Urbina, works at Deloitte & Touche and whose staff is largely composed of graduate students in the CPA program a the Universidad Especializada de Contador Publico Autorizado. The journal, though about the rather narrow subject of tax law, encompasses the disciplines of both the legal and accounting professions, and gets into theoretical, historical and international perspectives as well as the nuts and bolts of current Panamanian tax law. Because it’s oriented toward specialists and those studying to be specialists in a small country, the Gaceta’s print run is only 300. (However, if you aren’t such a specialist but maintain an interest in tax law, you can get a copy at the Colegio for $15.)

In the various preliminary speeches by CPAs, educators and lawyers, it was noted that because foreign investors are taking an increasing role in the Panamanian economy, which itself is being absorbed into a global economy, there is a need for a wider understanding of the peculiarities of Panama’s accounting system. Moreover, it was pointed out, our tax laws have twice undergone major rewritings in the past three years and new regulations and interpretations are in the process of being issued.

Carlos Urbina, who studied both in Panama and in the Netherlands, placed the Gaceta Oficial in the context of Panama’s intellectual development. “We used to have to travel thousands of miles to study what we can study here now,” he said. This issue, he noted, includes articles by both accountants and lawyers, a couple of pieces by foreign contributors, historical analyses of things like the 19th century single tax movement, Panamanian tax curiosities that may take on new life under recent revisions to the tax code, and issues of importance to the future of this country’s offshore financial services sector.

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