Swiss bank accounts of Indians shared by Switzerland under AEOI mechanism

The Swiss Federal Tax Administration (FTA) said on Monday it has exchanged information on financial accounts with 75 countries including India.

The exchange took place within the framework of the global standard on automatic exchange of information (AEOI). Following the first exchange last year in which no technical problems were encountered, this year the AEOI involved a total of 75 countries.

With 63 of these countries, the exchange of information was reciprocal. In the case of 12 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.

About 7,500 reporting financial institutions (banks, trusts, and insurers) are currently registered with the FTA. These institutions collected the data and transferred it to the FTA.

The FTA sent information on around 3.1 million financial accounts to the partner states and received information on around 2.4 million from them. The largest exchange was with Germany (in both directions) as was the case in the previous year. The FTA cannot provide any information on the amount of financial assets.

Switzerland has committed itself to adopting the global standard for the international automatic exchange of information in tax matters. The legal basis for the implementation of the AEOI in Switzerland came into force on January 1, 2017.

Identification, account and financial information are exchanged including name, address, state of residence and tax identification number as well as 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.

Next year, Switzerland's network of AEOI partner states will expand further to nearly 90 countries. The OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes reviews the implementation of AEOI.