France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK have agreed to more automatic exchanges of banking data to fight tax evasion, increasing pressure on Austria and Luxembourg to give up their veto on the equivalent EU bill. In a joint letter to the EU commission sent on Tuesday (9 April), the finance ministers of the five largest EU countries say they have agreed on a "pilot" project of "automatic information exchange" aimed at fighting tax evasion. The initiative is open to other member states and is based on a recently adopted law in the US - the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act - that requires US citizens to declare their bank accounts held abroad and foreign banks to notify US tax authorities about their American clients.
A similar EU-wide law has so far been held up by Austria and Luxembourg, both keen on preserving bank secrecy for domestic and foreign clients. The five finance ministers "call on all EU member states to agree without delay" on the bill, so that "Europe can take a lead in promoting a global system of automatic information exchange, removing the hiding places for those who would seek to evade paying their taxes." (...)
No comments:
Post a Comment