The European Commission has concluded negotiations on an ambitious new tax transparency agreement with Switzerland, marking a major step forward in the fight against tax evasion. Under this new agreement, Member States and Switzerland will automatically exchange information on the full range of financial account information from 2018.
This means that EU residents will no longer be able to hide undeclared income in Swiss accounts to evade paying tax.
Pierre Moscovici, Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs, said: «We are taking a decisive step towards total tax transparency between Switzerland and the EU. I am confident that our other neighbours will soon follow suit. This transparency is vital to ensure that each country can collect the tax revenues it is due.»
Member States will receive, on an annual basis, the names, addresses, tax identification numbers and dates of birth of their residents with accounts in Switzerland, as well as a broad set of other financial and account balance information. This is fully in line with the new OECD/G20 global standard for the automatic exchange of information.
The new EU-Swiss agreement was initialled by Commission and Swiss negotiators. It will be signed following authorisation by the Council on one side and the Swiss Government on the other, both of which are expected to be before the summer.