Brussels, 17/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 19 March, Switzerland and the European Union will initial an agreement on the automatic exchange of information in taxation matters, the European Commission confirmed earlier this week.
Once definitively signed, this agreement will have to be approved by each of the member states of the EU and by the Swiss parliament. In theory, it is expected to be in force in 2018. At the same time, the OECD has judged Switzerland to be in compliance with its criteria on the fight against tax fraud, thanks to the “improvements” made since 2011 to the rules on banking secrecy and the exchange of information. Switzerland therefore enters into the second peer-review phase of the Global Forum on Transparency and the Exchange of Information, which covers the effective application of the new standards. This will be no mean feat, said Pascal Saint-Amans, director of the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, quoted by the Swiss newspaper Le Temps (our translation). (Elodie Lamer)