Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes

1. S. 523Introduction

Bank secrecy, as well as the possibility to take advantage of legislation where taxpayers can hide ownership, identity, and accounting information, has always been an important tool for international tax planning. In recent years globalization, driven by key factors such as the liberalization of financial markets, the new era of electronic commerce and electronic money has accelerated access to anonymous and instantaneous cross-border transactions. This has given the chance to taxpayers to use technological and financial resources to escape taxes by using financial institutions in jurisdictions that protect banking and ownership information from disclosure to tax authorities. Even though these provisions safeguarding secrecy rely on legitimate principles such as the right to privacy and confidentiality, as a consequence of the increasing amount of tax evasion, the international community has strengthened its efforts to tackle those jurisdictions where taxpayers can benefit from strong secrecy provisions. Consequently, in the past years, under the Global Forum of Transparency and Exchange of Information (the Global Forum), both OECD member and non-member countries hav...