The government of Hong Kong has recently announced that it will support the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD, Hong Kong’s support for the new global standard on automatic exchange of information for the purpose of enhancing tax transparency and combating cross-border tax evasion.
Earlier this year, the OECD released a Common Reporting Standard for the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in Tax Matters, calling on governments to obtain detailed account information from their financial institutions and exchange that information automatically with the jurisdictions of residence of account holders on an annual basis.
Hong Kong is committed to implementing the new global standard on a reciprocal basis with appropriate partners which can meet relevant requirements on protection of privacy and confidentiality of information exchanged and ensuring proper use of the data. According to the latest timeline allowable by the Global Forum, the first automatic information exchanges are to commence by the end of 2018.
The OECD hopes that once these are implemented, along with the eight others, “the measures will ensure the coherence of corporate tax systems in a cross-border environment, introduce substance requirements in the area of tax treaties and transfer pricing, and ensure transparency while promoting certainty and predictability.”
