Bern-headquartered Federal Tax Administration (FTA) has exchanged information on financial accounts with 104 countries within the framework of the global standard on the automatic exchange of information (AEOI).
This year, the AEOI involved a total of 104 countries with Kazakhstan, the Maldives and Oman added to the existing list.
With 78 countries, the exchange of information was reciprocal. In the case of 25 countries, Switzerland received information but did not provide any, either because those countries do not yet meet the international requirements on confidentiality and data security or because they chose not to receive data.
No data was exchanged with Russia this year either, it further said in a statement on 9 October.
Currently, around 9,000 reporting financial institutions (banks, trusts, insurers, etc.) are registered with the FTA. These institutions collected the data and transferred it to the FTA.
The FTA sent information on around 3.6 million financial accounts to the partner states and received information on around 2.9 financial accounts from them.
The FTA said it cannot provide any information on the amount of financial assets.
The legal basis for the implementation of the AEOI in Switzerland came into force on 1 January 2017. Identification, account and financial information is exchanged, including name, address, country of residence and tax identification number, as well information concerning the reporting financial institution, account balance and capital income.
The exchanged information allows the cantonal tax authorities to verify whether taxpayers have correctly declared their financial accounts abroad in their tax returns.
The OECD's Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (Global Forum) reviews the implementation of the AEOI.
