Brussels, 31/08/2009 (Agence Europe) - Austria is the final European Union member state to remain on the “grey” list of jurisdictions that indicated a willingness to respect Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) standards on tax information exchange. According to the OECD, which updated its list on non-cooperative jurisdictions on Friday 28 August, Vienna has so far signed two bilateral tax agreements that comply with international standards, one of which is with Luxembourg. Another agreement was initialled with Switzerland and negotiations are continuing with other jurisdictions. Under international pressure exerted by the G20, which may call for sanctions against recalcitrant countries at the end of September, Austria is currently amending its legislation in an effort to authorise information exchange in cases of requests made by foreign tax authorities respecting very precise criteria. The country's parliament is holding a special meeting on Tuesday 1 September to adopt the new law. Austria still needs to sign at least ten tax agreements if the OECD is to definitively remove the country from the “grey list”. Luxembourg and Belgium were removed from the list in July (EUROPE 9940 and 9946).
In the perspective of the forthcoming Global Forum on Transparency and Information Exchange in Mexico on 1 and 2 September, the OECD has published its annual report on the progress made in areas figuring on its conference agenda. It reveals that Luxembourg and Belgium signed more than the minimum threshold of 12 bilateral tax agreements. Switzerland, which initialled 12 tax agreements (EUROPE 9948), has so far signed four: with Denmark, France and Luxembourg. Monaco signed two agreements; San Marino and Lichtenstein signed one each and Andorra has not signed any. In total, 75 bilateral tax agreements have been signed since the beginning of 2008.
At the end of June the European Commission asked for a mandate from the Council to negotiate anti-tax fraud agreements, including the exchange of tax information in line with OECD standards (see EUROPE 9928), with four European non-member states (Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and Switzerland). The conclusion of such agreements would be the beginning of the end of the deduction at source mechanism which these European non-member states and three EU member states (Austria, Belgium until the start of 2010 and Luxembourg) apply under directive 2003/48/EC on the taxation of the savings income of natural persons. The United States is also expected to sign an agreement with the EU on the exchange of tax information. (M.B./transl.rh/rt)