Luxembourg, a territory
renowned for its strict banking confidentiality, has acknowledged the
unstoppable movement towards automatic exchange of tax information and has said
that it will automatically exchange details of deposits held by individuals within
the European Union by 1st January 2015.
Up until now, under the EU
Savings Directive Luxembourg has adopted the route of withholding tax on
savings rather than exchanging information, but it appears now to believe that
the US’s FATCA initiative is a game-changer requiring a more open approach.
However, its move to relax banking secrecy is only going so far - the new regime will not apply to foreign companies based in the country, which is a
popular headquarters for major corporations, but only to EU citizens, significantly lessening its impact.
The move by Luxembourg will bring it in line with all the EU member nations except Austria, who are believed to be considering their position and coming under pressure from other U member states to adopt a more transparent approach.
The move by Luxembourg will bring it in line with all the EU member nations except Austria, who are believed to be considering their position and coming under pressure from other U member states to adopt a more transparent approach.
The Luxembourg
move comes hard on the heels of UK Government’s announcement that
it is to pilot a new multilateral tax information exchange agreement with four
of its largest EU fellow members (France, Germany, Italy and Spain), and its
negotiation of a so-called “mini-FATCA” with Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man
(with Cayman to follow suit).
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