Financial Transparency Coalition

WASHINGTON, DC – Global Financial Integrity (GFI) applauded the U.S. Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for last night adopting a regulation (TD 9584) requiring banks to report information about interest earned on U.S. deposit accounts held by non-resident aliens, as banks have been required to do for accounts held by American citizens and Canadians. GFI and others have long advocated for implementation of this rule as an important tool in the fight against international tax evasion, money laundering, drug trafficking, corruption, and terrorist financing.

A couple of days ago I highlighted a report from Cayman about a meeting of offshore lawyers where it seemed there was widespread agreement that the system of tax information exchange agreements that the OECD, UK government and tax haven authorities say delivers secrecy in the murky world of secrecy jurisdictions really does not such thing.

An imminent “final withholding tax treaty”, will allow Germany to claw back some revenue from tax evasion, but it will also protect Swiss bank secrecy and undermine the prospect of automatic information exchange. Swiss and German negotiators will probably conclude the deal on 10^th August. The deal will then have to be approved through the respective national legislative processes, so there will be opportunities for civil society to mobilize opposition and generate debate about information exchange. A withholding tax will be charged on income from savings and investments of German citizens with Swiss accounts, i.e those who had previously evaded...

PARIS – The OECD and India have announced plans to strengthen ongoing co-operation on tax-related issues through the development of a three-year partnership that will provide greater opportunities for structured dialogue and sharing of information.