Exchange of information with 75 countries on around 3.1 million financial accounts
Tabea Lorenz
According to the media release of the Federal Tax Administration (FTA) of 7 October 2019, the FTA has exchanged information on financial accounts with 75 countries. The exchange takes place within the framework of the global standard for automatic information exchange (AIA).
After the first exchange without technical problems last year (cf. the taxlawblog article of 7 October 2018), the AIA took place this year with a total of 75 countries. Switzerland exchanged data with 63 of them. Switzerland received information from 12 states, but did not send any because (i) the states either do not yet meet international requirements for confidentiality and data security (Belize, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Curaçao, Montserrat, Romania, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Cyprus) or (ii) voluntarily refrain from supplying data (Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands).
The FTA currently has around 7,500 reporting financial institutions registered with it (banks, trusts, insurance companies, etc.), which collected the data and transmitted it to the FTA. The FTA sent information on approximately 3.1 million financial accounts to the partner states and received information on approximately 2.4 million financial accounts from them. As last year, the largest number was exchanged with Germany (in both directions). The FTA cannot provide any information on the volume of financial assets.
Switzerland has committed itself to adopting the global standard for the international automatic exchange of information in tax matters. The legal basis for implementing the AIA in Switzerland came into force on 1 January 2017. Identification, account and financial information will be exchanged, including name, address, country of residence and tax identification number as well as information on the reporting financial institution, account balance and capital income. Thanks to the information exchanged, the cantonal tax authorities can check whether taxpayers have correctly declared their financial accounts abroad in their tax returns.
Next year, Switzerland's network of partner states will be further expanded to around 90 countries. The implementation of the AIA is being examined by the OECD's Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (Global Forum).
The press release of the FTA is available here.
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