Since 2015, the EU has engaged in tax cooperation exchanges with third countries as part of its efforts to promote transparency and international tax cooperation. These exchanges have so far been based on traditional financial account information relating to individuals, in line with the OECD Common Reporting Standard. This standard has over the years been revised multiple times to cover new categories of financial information within the EU.
The goal of this new initiative is that the automatic exchange of financial account information between EU Member States and the respective five countries is aligned with the updated CRS applicable within the EU and more generally continues to take place from 1 January 2026.
Tax cooperation with third countries
These revised agreements now align the exchange of information with Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco and San Marino with the latest international standards developed by the OECD. They thus broaden the scope of automatic exchange of financial account information between the EU and the partner countries to also cover electronic money products and digital currencies. The new protocols also introduce an enhanced framework for cooperation on the recovery of value-added tax (VAT) and for combating tax fraud and tax evasion. Furthermore, they reinforce due diligence and reporting obligations, enabling tax authorities to respond more swiftly and effectively to the information received.
Building on this, the EU will now also launch negotiations with Norway.
With respect to Switzerland, the EU Council expressed its hope that Switzerland will take all necessary measures to ensure that the agreement reached on the recovery of VAT will also be extended to cover mutual assistance for the recovery of other tax claims in the near future and that if this objective is not achieved within four years, the European Union will reconsider the overall balance of this agreement.
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