Brussels, 09/12/2014 (Agence Europe) - At the Ecofin Council on Tuesday 9 December, Austria said that it is prepared to apply the automatic exchange of tax information (AEI) provisions of the updated EU directive on administrative cooperation (2011/16/EU) from September 2017 onwards, a year earlier than it had promised last October.
The updated directive translates the OECD's AEI rules into EU legislation. More than 50 countries have committed at the OECD to introduce the rules in 2017 rather than the 2018 deadline. In October, Austria's finance minister explained his country was unable to join the other 'early adopters' for technical reasons, but said he would do what he could to ensure AEI was applied before 2018 where technically feasible to do so. At the 9 December Ecofin meeting, he said he had negotiated with the banks and would be able to start sharing information in 2017, but not for all of 2016. The other countries will start collecting information in 2016 to be exchanged in 2017.
The EU's finance ministers have adopted an updated directive on administrative cooperation which adds interests, dividends, gross income from the sale of financial assets and other income to bank balances under the AEI rules. (EL)