Switzerland put an end to banking secrecy
After eighty-three years in operation, Switzerland has put an end to banking secrecy. Following the agreements of automatic tax information exchange established in 2014 and 2015 respectively with the member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Union (EU), Switzerland brings together, as of this January, the bank details of foreign clients. According to the Swiss Bankers Association (ASB), the country leads the management of global private wealth from foreign citizens, with a 25% share of business. In total, the 266 Swiss banks manage 6.1 billion euros, of which half come from abroad.
Thus, since 2018, Switzerland will move automatically to the countries with which it has ratified the agreement, the data for the year 2017 corresponding to -interessos income or dividends, the amount deposited and gains from the sale of assets of those foreign citizens with bank accounts in the country. The agreement, however, does not provide for cooperation on the basis of stolen data.
THE SWISS BANKING SYSTEM
Switzerland is the international benchmark financial statements. The banking sector generated 167,000 jobs and represents 9.3% of Swiss GDP.
The law on banking secrecy, approved in 1934, for eight decades has attracted large private wealth from abroad, as itprevented third actors may access the bank details of citizens with accounts in Switzerland. Only the bodies of those countries with which it had signed an agreement to avoid double taxation (CDI) could claim about the bank details of a citizen as long as they facilitated the name and account number of the person concerned and necessarily demonstrate that he had evaded taxes.
AUTOMATIC EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION ACT
The Principality of Andorra has recently implemented the Law on automatic exchange of information in tax matters . So Andorran banks replicated the Swiss model: from 2018 Andorra shall provide, to the 81 countries which signed the agreement, the fiscal data of foreign clients for the year this year.
