GERMANY and
the USA have signed an accord “intergovernmental agreement (IGA)” aimed
at improving tax information sharing. It represents a
significant step toward for implementation of the automatic
sharing of tax relevant information. The
IGA states that the Parties are committed to working together over the
longer term towards achieving common reporting and due diligence standards
for financial institutions and the United States of America acknowledges
the need to coordinate the reporting obligations under FATCA with other
US tax reporting obligations of German financial institutions to avoid
duplicative reporting.
The bill implementing
the accord is to be submitted to the German Bundestag, or lower house of
Parliament, in parallel to the signing of the agreement. It is expected that
the legislation will be adopted ahead of the next parliamentary elections,
to give German banks the legal certainty they need to make the necessary
technical preparations.
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