Automatic Exchange Of Financial Information
On the 29th of October, 2014, Cyprus became one of the 51 jurisdictions to sign the new OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) /G20 Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in Tax Matters, decided at the annual meeting of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes held in Berlin.
The new standard provides for the automatic exchange of all financial information on an annual basis. Cyprus has committed to implement the standard on a reciprocal basis with all interested jurisdictions. Cyprus is a member of the 'early adopters' group of almost 40 countries that have committed to launch their first information exchanges by September 2017. Others are expected to follow in 2018.
Consequently, bank secrecy for tax purposes is coming to an end, as countries and major financial centres commit to automatic exchange of information between jurisdictions, without prior request, as from 1st January 2017. The financial information that will be disclosed by countries entering the agreement in 2017 will reflect the information starting from 1st January 2016.
Under the single global standard, jurisdictions will obtain information from their financial institutions and automatically exchange with other jurisdictions on an annual basis, without prior request.
For further information, you may review the AEOI Status of Commitments at http://www.oecd.org/tax/transparency/AEOI-commitments.pdf
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