Australia signs up to automatic tax info exchange
Australia has signed the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement (MCAA) on the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information, reports Tax News.
The agreement was signed by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Steven Ciobo, at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD’s) Ministerial Council meeting on June 3.
Under the MCAA, the Australian Taxation Office will automatically receive information on investment income and balances of financial accounts held by Australians in other countries. The data will then be used to check income declared in Australian tax returns.
The MCAA specifies the details of what information will be exchanged and when, as set out in the OECD’s Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Information in Tax Matters.
Australia will begin collecting data in 2017, and the first information exchange will take place in 2018.
The Australian Government has recently taken steps to further crack down on tax avoidance and evasion. The 2015 Budget, delivered last month, included plans for a multinational tax avoidance law. Australia was also the first country to sign an automatic information exchange declaration with Switzerland.
