Tax & Legal

The Federal Cabinet today adopted the Common Action Plan against Organized Crime. It was jointly developed by the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Federal Ministry of the Interior, and the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection.

The Federal Ministry of Finance (MoF) has revised its guidelines regarding the exchange of information and the associated external audit titled “instruction sheet on cross-border audit cooperation with tax administrations of other countries and territories: joint and simultaneous audits and presence of officials”.

On 14 April 2025 the Council adopted a directive (DAC9) that will extend cooperation and information exchange in the area of minimum effective corporate taxation.

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 finance ministry has issued a decree on the procedures to be followed by tax offices requesting information from other countries under a tax information exchange agreement.

The European Council has adopted amendments to the Savings Tax Directive for the automatic exchange of information between member states from January 1, 2017.

The OECD has published a new standard on the automatic exchange of information between tax authorities. This is complemented by a model competent authority agreement drafted as a bilateral treaty between two states.

The two finance ministries have agreed on an automatic exchange of information on pensions paid to residents of their country under deduction of a withholding tax.

France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and the USA have prepared a model bilateral treaty for the mutual exchange of information on bank accounts held by residents of the other country. Compliance with the treaty would absolve financial institutions from their own specific US reporting requirements under FATCA.