Nations to share info to fight tax evasion

In a joint statement yesterday, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (Iras) and the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) announced that they had entered a Competent Authority Agreement on the automatic exchange of financial-account information (AEOI) based on the Common Reporting Standard (CRS).
Under the agreement, Iras will automatically exchange with its Australian counterpart information on accounts in Singapore held by Australian tax residents, while the ATO will automatically exchange with Iras the same of accounts in Australia held by Singaporean tax residents.
The two countries’ information sharing under the CRS will start by September 2018.
The CRS is an internationally agreed standard endorsed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Global Forum for Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes. More than 100 jurisdictions have endorsed the CRS and will commence AEOI in either 2017 or 2018.
“Both jurisdictions are satisfied with the confidentiality rules and data safeguards that are in place in the other jurisdiction to ensure the confidentiality of information exchanged and prevent its unauthorised use,” Iras and the ATO said.
With the agreement, Singapore and Australia have taken another step in enhancing cooperation to support greater tax transparency and fight against tax evasion, they said.