The G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors met a week or so ago - and as I was distracted I did not notice.
In their final communique they said:
We agreed to maintain momentum for action to tackle non-cooperative jurisdictions and to fully implement the G20 anti-corruption action plan. We asked the Global Forum to report to us on ways to improve the effectiveness of exchange of tax information.
If they're serious let's recognise the fact that tax information exchange agreements do not work.
And then just say the bleeding obvious - which is that automatic information exchange is the solution. For the simplest option available to ensure that the smoking gun every tax authority needs to open an investigation is available to them, see here.
In summary: stop prevaricating and please deliver. Now.
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Richard,
It is my understanding that the electronic forms system currently used for direct tax information exchange between tax collecting agencies within the EU, is going to be used by the OECD territories too, but it is not known exactly when. The system was developed in Brussels by the Commission I think, and it is as near as you’ll get to automatic data exchange for the time being. I just we could get to the point where we have a commonly shared protocal, just like you have described in your paper, and not a hotch potch of bespoke TIEAs which for the most part are unworkable.