Brussels, 29/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - At the Global Forum held in Berlin on Wednesday 29 October, 51 countries and administrations pledged in writing to apply the new global OECD standard for the automatic exchange of information for tax purposes (AEI) from 2017. This is an excellent leaving present for the outgoing European Commissioner for Taxation, Algirdas Semeta, who would not have believed it possible just a few years ago.
Commenting on the signature by 51 countries and administrations - including a last-minute Albania - of a global agreement aiming to allow the implementation of the automatic exchange of tax information between the 'early adopters' from 2017, Semeta said that this showed that “many countries around the world are ready to work towards alignment with the Global Standard and recognise automatic exchange of information as the new standard for international cooperation”. This should help the countries to fight tax evasion and make tax collection more effective, Semeta added. At the moment, there are five administrations - Bahrain, the Cook Islands, Nauru, Panama and Vanuatu - which have not yet put their names to a specific timetable.
58 countries in total, according to one of the latest versions of the OECD document listing the statuses of commitment, are planning to implement the automatic exchange of information from 2017, a year ahead of the OECD's timetable. These are the countries of the EU, with the exception of Austria, which has undertaken to apply it in 2018 whilst explicitly promising to do so earlier if technically possible. The other countries which have signed up for 2017 include the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Jersey, Lichtenstein, the Seychelles, South Africa, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and San Marino. In 2018, 34 administrations will join the initiative, among them Andorra, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Monaco, New Zealand, Qatar, Russia, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. As for the United States, the OECD notes that there are considerable overlaps between the FATCA and the OECD standard. The United States will apply the FATCA from 2015.
On Wednesday, the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaüble, called on the other administrations to undertake to apply the global standard. (EL)