THE OECD's Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative
Assistance in Tax Matters seems to be gaining wider acceptance. As per OECD's
latest Press Release, 12 more countries have signed, or committed to sign, the
Convention. In addition, another 6 countries have ratified the
Convention.
A wide range of countries participated in the signing
ceremony at the OECD. Austria, Belize, Estonia, Latvia, Luxembourg, Nigeria,
Saudi Arabia, Singapore and the Slovak Republic signed the Convention. Burkina
Faso, Chile and El Salvador signed a letter of intention to sign the Convention.
Belize, Ghana, Greece, Ireland, Malta, and the Netherlands including its
Caribbean islands (Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba) and Aruba, Curaçao and Sint
Maarten deposited their instruments of ratification. In addition, Morocco
recently signed the Convention.
“This is a historic moment for the
Convention and another winning round in the fight against tax cheats,” said OECD
Secretary-General Angel Gurría during the signing ceremony. “In the past 2 years
more than 60 countries have signed the Convention or stated their intention to
do so, marking an important milestone on the road to closer cooperation and more
transparency – to making the international system fair to all taxpayers.”
Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Mr Tharman
Shanmugaratnam said: “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.”
The G20 has consistently supported the
Convention. At their last meeting G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank
Governors stated, “In view of the next G20 Summit, we also strongly encourage
all jurisdictions to sign or express interest in signing the Multilateral
Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters and call on the
OECD to report on progress”.
With taxpayers increasingly operating
worldwide, tax authorities are moving from bilateral to multilateral cooperation
and from exchange of information on request to other forms of co-operation such
as automatic exchange of information. The Convention, provides a comprehensive
multilateral framework for such co-operation and complements other initiatives,
such as the standardised multilateral automatic exchange model being developed
by the OECD and its G20 partners and efforts underway in the European Union to
improve automatic exchange.
The Convention also provides for spontaneous
exchange of information, simultaneous tax examinations and assistance in tax
collection. A valuable tool for governments to fight offshore tax evasion, the
Convention also ensures compliance with national tax laws and respects the
rights of taxpayers by protecting the confidentiality of the information
exchanged.
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