Switzerland, Singapore join clampdown on bank secrecy...

Switzerland and Singapore joined on Tuesday the growing ranks of countries agreeing to share tax information in a major breakthrough against banking secrecy, the OECD said.

Under the pledge signed by a total 47 countries, financial information will automatically be shared on an annual basis between governments, including taxpayers' bank balances, dividends, interest income and sales proceeds used to calculate capital gains tax.

"It's clearly the end of bank secrecy abused for tax purposes," Pascal Saint-Amans, tax director at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, told journalists at a meeting held by the international think-tank in Paris.

"It means that governments can really assess the tax owed by people who thought they could hide in other jurisdictions."

While most of the signatories had already committed to sharing tax information on an automatic basis, the fact that Switzerland and Singapore have now also signed up is a big step in a fight against tax evasion that governments have intensified since the global financial crisis. Full story...

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