12/10/21

SWITZERLAND: Jurisdiction Hands over Account Information.

As published on finews.com, Tuesday 12 October, 2021.

Switzerland is handing over information on 3.3 million accounts this year, but some countries don’t want to know.

This year Switzerland is exchanging information on financial accounts with 96 countries, according to a statement by the federal tax administration Monday.

In 2021 the following countries participated in the exchange for the first time: Antigua and Barbuda, Azerbaijan, Dominica, Ghana, Lebanon, Macau, Pakistan, Qatar, Samoa and Vanuatu.

Switzerland received information on 2.1 million financial accounts in total.

The exchange of information with 70 countries was reciprocal, the statement says. In the case of 26 countries however, Switzerland received information but did not provide any.

This could be because some countries don’t meet international requirements on confidentiality and data security (applies to 14 countries), or because they chose not to receive data (applies to 12 countries).Among the countries which did not want to receive information are Bermuda, Bahrain, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Qatar and United Arab Emirates.

The automatic exchange of information, which came into force in Switzerland in January 2017, allows the tax authorities to verify whether taxpayers have correctly declared their financial accounts abroad in their tax returns.