The provision of Section 5 (3) of the Financial Accounts and Exchange of Information Act is in compliance with constitutional law. In particular, the automatic exchange of financial account information does not violate the right to informational self-determination of the taxpayers affected by it. This was ruled by the Supreme Tax Court who stated that the right of individuals to decide for themselves on the disclosure and use of their personal data is not unduly impaired.
The Ministry of Finance published a circular on 2 February 2018 with a preliminary list of countries participating in the automatic exchange of information in the period to 30 September 2018. The final list should be available by the end of June 2018.
The tax authorities have now published the final Ministry of Finance circular answering questions in connection with the application of the exchange of financial information and the FATCA agreement. The draft versions of the circular had previously been released and these are now in a final version.
The cabinet has adopted a bill to regulate the automatic exchange of bank account and investment income information with the 60 co-signatory states of the “multilateral competent authority agreement on automatic exchange of financial account information”.
