Singapore, along with Austria and Luxembourg, have signed up to tax protocols to enable exchange of tax information between these and other jurisdictions around the world.

Austria,
Luxembourg and Singapore have along with six other jurisdictions signed up to tax protocols that will
enable the international exchange of tax information between
participating countries.

As a part of continued international efforts to crack down on tax
offenders, nine countries in total signed up to the OECD’s Multilateral
Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters.

The other six countries which signed include Belize, Estonia, Latvia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and the Slovak Republic.

Additionally, Burkina Faso, Chile  and  El Salvador said they were committed to signing the agreement.

Belize, Ghana, Greece, Ireland, Malta, and  the Netherlands,
including its Caribbean islands (Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba) and
Aruba, Curaçao and Sint, also ratified the convention.

“Signing the convention reflects Singapore’s commitment to tax
cooperation based on international standards, but the standards can only
work if all financial centres come on board. Singapore will work with
our international partners to achieve that, so that Switzerland,
Luxembourg, Singapore, Hong Kong and offshore jurisdictions like the
British Overseas Territories move together," said Singapore’s deputy
prime minister and minister for finance, Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

Tax authorities are moving from bilateral to multilateral cooperation
and the automatic exchange of information in order to deal with
taxpayers increasingly operating worldwide. The convention provides a
multilateral framework for co-operation and will enable countries to
fight offshore tax evasion through the spontaneous exchange of
information, simultaneous tax examinations and assistance in tax
collection.

Post credit-crunch, offshore tax havens have been thrust into the
spotlight as governments in Europe and the US have made it a key
priority to increase transparency and crack down on tax evasion and
secrecy.

The UK's HM Revenue and Customs is currently working with the US and
Australian tax administrations to investigate hundreds of accountants,
lawyers and other professional advisors as part of its ongoing crackdown
on offshore tax evasion.

In early May, Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands,
Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands joined the Caymans and
Gibraltar in agreeing to provide Britain, France, Germany, Italy and
Spain with details of bank accounts held by their citizens in the
territories.

The Singapore government has also announced it is set to deal with
cross-border tax cheats by adopting new measures that will more than
double the number of jurisdictions it currently exchanges information
with from 41 to 83.