COTA was established in 1971 at a meeting of the Heads of Regional Tax Administration convened in Saint Lucia when its Constitution was ratified. The Constitution was subsequently approved in October 1972 by the Standing Committee of Ministers of Finance in Trinidad & Tobago. The year 2002 therefore marks the thirty-second anniversary of the establishment of COTA.
The COTA Newsletter Issue No. 1 commenced in 1985; the COTA Newsletter was introduced to replace the COTA Quarterly Journal.