….only South Africa affected in African continent in 2018
Several of Switzerland’s agreements for the automatic exchange of information (AOEI) in tax matters will become effective with numerous other territories from January 1, 2018.
A news report by Tax-News.com indicated that the exchanges will take place under the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS), which provides for the automatic exchange of information between those territories that have agreed to exchange information automatically.
Switzerland will begin to exchange such information this year, in respect of account information collected for some partners (the CRS “early adopters”) in 2017: Australia, Canada, the European Union states, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Iceland, Japan, Jersey, Norway, and South Korea.
According to the news medium, an expanded list of the territories that Switzerland intends to automatically exchange information with from 2019 has been newly published on the State Secretariat for International Finance’s website.
To comply with its commitment to automatically exchange information with these states from 2019, Swiss financial institutions will be obligated to comply with new information collection obligations from January 1, 2018, in respect of accounts involving taxpayers from the following states: Andorra, Argentina, Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Curacao, Faroe Islands, Greenland, Hong Kong and India.
Others are, Indonesia, Israel, Liechtenstein, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Monaco, Montserrat, New Zealand, Russia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, Singapore, South Africa, and Uruguay.
New automatic exchange of information agreements are to enter into force for other states from January 1, 2018, also. These states and territories – Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, the United Arab Emirates, and the Turks and Caicos – are “permanent non-reciprocal jurisdictions,” in that they will supply account information to the Switzerland and other partner states on a permanent basis but will not receive such data.
Regarding the agreements with Hong Kong and Singapore, the State Secretariat stated: “Switzerland has signed bilateral agreements with Hong Kong and Singapore regarding the introduction of the AEOI from 2018/2019. The agreements will be applied provisionally from January 1, 2018. Parliament will deliberate on the approval of the agreements in 2018.”
