The UK is among 51 countries and jurisdictions to sign a new multilateral authority agreement to tackle tax evasion during a meeting of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes in Berlin today.
The multilateral agreement activates automatic exchange of information based on the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, which provides for all possible forms of administrative co-operation between states in the assessment and collection of taxes.
The agreement, therefore, translates commitment into action by implementing the Standard for automatic exchange, and specifies the details of what information will be exchanged and when. Under the agreement, unprecedented levels of information, including account balances, interest payments and beneficial ownership, will be shared with the UK from countries across the world.
While the agreement is multilateral, the actual exchanges are bilateral.
Michael Plowgian, a principal in the international tax group of the Washington National Tax practice of KPMG LLP and a former senior adviser with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said: ‘The standard calls on jurisdictions to implement standardized customer due-diligence procedures and reporting requirements for their financial institutions and to exchange the reported information with other governments on an automatic basis.’
‘While many of the signatories to the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement have previously issued a joint statement committing to adopt the Standard, the agreement marks the first international agreement obligating them to collect and exchange this information with each other.’
The global standard of automatic information exchange to tackle tax evasion was developed by the OECD and agreed in July 2014. In total, 57 countries and jurisdictions have committed to a common implementation timetable which expects to see early adopters launching their first information exchanges by September 2017 and others to follow in 2018.
The full list of countries committed to first exchange in 2017 or 2018 will be released by the Global Forum in their annual report at the end of the 29 October plenary session.
More details are available at http://www.oecd.org/newsroom/major-new-steps-to-boost-international-cooperation-against-tax-evasion-governments-commit-to-implement-automatic-exchange-of-information-beginning-2017.htm