Brussels, 07/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - A declaration on automatic exchange of information in tax matters was signed by 47 countries in Paris on Tuesday 6 May.
The signatory countries are the 34 members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), including Switzerland, along with Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and South Africa.
“Today's commitment by so many countries to implement the new global standard, and to do so quickly, is another major step towards ensuring that tax cheats have nowhere left to hide”, said OECD chief Angel Gurria in a press release.
Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Spain and Germany, along with 39 other countries, have promised to be pioneers in this domain and introduce the new OECD automatic exchange of bank information rules from 2017 (see EUROPE 11068). The rules were prepared by the OECD and endorsed by G20 finance ministers in February 2014 (see EUROPE 11025). They require countries and jurisdictions to obtain all financial information from their financial institutions and exchange that information automatically with other jurisdictions on an annual basis. The OECD will publish the technical details needed for application of the new rules ahead of the G20 Finance Summit in September. (EL)