Page 49 - Ekonomija i Biznis_noemvri 2015.indd

BANKING

(photo: “bloomberg”) insurance companies.
Expectations are that other off-

shore financial centers will be (or al-
ready are) under pressure to sign the
OECD Agreement, having in mind the
announcement that the G20 coun-
tries are ready to introduce sanctions
against those countries which will
resist to share information. For this
purpose, by the end of the year, OECD
plans to compile a blacklist of coun-
tries that refuse to cooperate.

According to analysts, there is a vis-
ible movement of funds from Switzer-
land to other offshore centers such as
Dubai and Panama, which still refuse
to accept the signing of the Agreement
and comply with the standard imposed
by the OECD.

On the other hand, Asian offshore
financial centers such as Singapore
and Hong Kong, which mostly have
customers from the Middle East, Asia
and the Pacific, have not been substan-
tially affected by the requirements for

By accepting the OECD Agreement and by signing the
agreement between Switzerland and the European Union,
based on the principles of the OECD/G20, Switzerland, just

like the other countries which signed the Agreement,
undertakes to collect and exchange information about

the owners of bank accounts, beneficial owners of
companies and trusts

on their customers and submit them greater transparency, although Singa-
to their national tax authorities. These pore has already announced interest
will further submit the data to the tax in the implementation of the Agree-
authorities of the customer‘s country ment.
of origin, in an encrypted form. Name,
address, number and account balance The European Union is currently fi-
will be subject to automatic report- nalizing the negotiations to sign the
ing, as well as any payments of inter- same Agreement with several other
est, dividends, purchases and sales of countries, besides Switzerland, such
securities. These rules will be applied as: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco
uniformly to natural and legal entities, and San Marino. European countries
trusts and funds, and besides banks, expect billions of euros to be repatri-
this reporting obligation will be im- ated to the territory of the Union as
posed also on investment funds and a result of closing this channel of tax
evasion.

November 2015 49