Brussels, 27/08/2013 (Agence Europe) - On 27 August, the People's Republic of China joined the group of over 50 countries (70 if the commitments in principle are included) that have signed the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters. This is a convention developed by the OECD and Council of Europe, which provides for reciprocal exchange of information between parties on their nationals' assets abroad so as to make the fight against tax avoidance and tax evasion more effective. China' signing of the convention comes just a few days before the eighth summit of the G20 countries, which will take place in St Petersburg (Russia) on 5-6 September. One of the items on the agenda for the G20 summit will be strengthening tax governance at international level.
With China's signature, all the G20 countries now respect the commitment that they took at the summit in Cannes in November 2011 to move gradually - by means of this convention - from a bilateral system of exchange of tax information upon request to a multilateral automatic exchange of information in line with a standard model, so as to make this system the world standard in the long term. The support thus shown by China to strengthened tax governance could accelerate the implementation of this tax governance by creating a knock-on effect and by then coming to bear on the attitude of the countries which, like Switzerland and other tax havens, still resist the voluntary exchange of tax information in order to protect their banking secrecy. The secretary general of the OECD, Angel Gurria, believes likewise: “Today's signing is both timely and important, as the G20 has endorsed automatic exchange of information as the new global standard. This convention provides the ideal instrument to swiftly implement automatic exchange, and to do so with a wide range of partners. This also represents another significant step in the strengthening of collaboration between China and the OECD.” The drawing up of an agreement for implementing the automatic exchange of information could be completed by the end of the year, and detailed instructions could be available in the first half of 2014. (FG/transl.fl)