According to the announcement issued by the Swiss Federal Tax Administration''s official website on October 5, according to the Financial Accounts Automatic Information Exchange (AEOI) standard, the agency exchanged financial account information with other national tax authorities at the end of September, the first time in history.

The latest initiative of the Swiss Federal Tax Administration means that for those who wish to conceal offshore assets, Switzerland, the world''s largest offshore wealth management center, no longer has a “tax haven” role.

The above announcement mentioned that the first countries to exchange information with the Swiss Federal Tax Administration in accordance with the AEOI standards are EU countries plus nine other countries and regions: Australia, Canada, Guernsey, Iceland, Isle of Man, Japan, Jersey Island, Norway and South Korea.

The AEOI standard consists of two parts: the MCAA (Model Agreement between Authorities) and the CRS (Common Reporting Standard). AEOI is a set of standards, MCAA refers to the exchange of operating procedures between government tax authorities; and CRS refers to the requirements of regulating financial institutions to exchange information to their tax authorities.

 

It should be emphasized that the CRS is for non-resident accounts. If a Chinese has a financial account in Switzerland and is a non-resident for Switzerland, Switzerland will exchange information about this person''s financial account with China, as does China.

However, among the EU member states, Cyprus and Romania are excluded. The above announcement stated that this is because they have not yet met international requirements in terms of confidentiality and data security. In addition, Switzerland’s data transmission to Australia and France was temporarily delayed as the two countries have not transmitted data to the Swiss Federal Tax Administration for technical reasons.

To date, approximately 7,000 institutions, including banks, trusts and insurance companies, have registered with the Swiss Federal Tax Administration and shared financial account information with the agency.

The announcement mentioned that the Swiss Tax Administration has shared about 2 million financial account information with partners and has received millions of information, including the account holder’s name, address, nationality and tax identification information. , tax reporting agencies, account balances and capital gains, etc. According to the announcement, this exchange of information will enable the tax authorities to confirm whether the taxpayer is truthfully reporting their overseas accounts.

The Swiss Federal Tax Administration mentioned in the above announcement that by 2019, if the partner country meets the confidentiality and data security standards, then the data sharing party will be extended to about 80 countries and regions.