The Austrian Ministry of Finance on 2 January 2017, published a report on the tax changes that are applicable from 2017.
In addition to the measures already described, further changes regarding ‘EU measures’ are summarised below:
- Beneficial ownership register: Resulting the adoption of the amendments to the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Law, a register of beneficial ownership will be set up to implement the Anti-Money Laundering Directive (2015/ 849).
- Automatic exchange of bank data: Due to the implementation of Directive 2015/2060 repealing the Savings Directive, Austria automatically exchanges bank data with EU member states and third countries. With respect to new bank accounts, all financial institutions are obliged to submit relevant data to the tax authorities for the fourth quarter of 2016 and for other accounts from 1 January 2017. Austria will generally inform the other EU member states about those data at the latest by 30 September 2017.
- Automatic exchange of information regarding advance tax rulings: Besides, from 2017, information regarding advance tax rulings is exchanged automatically.
