According to an OECD press release on 29 October 2014 all OECD and G20 member countries and major financial centers participating in the annual meeting of the OECD’s Global Forum have endorsed the OECD/G20 standard on automatic exchange of information. A report containing information on the jurisdictions that are committed to the standard, and those that are not yet committed, will be presented to the leaders of the G20 countries when they meet for a summit in Australia on 15 and 16 November 2014.

Many of these countries have shown their commitment to the standard by signing a multilateral competent authority agreement that will bring about automatic information exchange on the basis of the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters. Countries who have signed this agreement are aiming to commence exchange of information by September 2017 while other countries will be expected to commence information exchange by 2018. The implementation of the standard is to be monitored by a peer review process.

In the case of the exchange of information on request the governments have agreed to include a requirement for the beneficial owners of legal entities to be communicated to tax authorities and exchanged with tax treaty partner states.

The OECD presented a new standard for automatic exchange of financial account information in tax matters to the finance ministers of the G20 last September. This standard sets out a requirement for the automatic exchange of financial information annually and most countries are committed to carrying out this process on a reciprocal basis where other jurisdictions are interested in doing so.