Singapore, And Raft Of Other Jurisdictions Sign Information Exchange Pacts

Stephen Little

Reporter

30 May 2013

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 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.