A recent OECD update reported that Norway has signed the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on the Automatic Exchange of Information on CRS Avoidance Arrangements and Opaque Offshore Structures (MDR-MCAA) on 26 November 2024.
This agreement allows for the yearly exchange of information on arrangements that bypass the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) and conceal offshore asset ownership shared with the taxpayers’ tax residence jurisdiction. This allows tax authorities to effectively monitor and enforce compliance among taxpayers as well as the intermediaries involved in these arrangements and structures.
The international standards developed by the OECD provide for transparency and exchange of information on request (EOIR) and for automatic exchange of financial account information (AEOI).
The AEOI standard, covering the Common Reporting Standard and the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, requires the annual exchange of a predefined set of information on financial accounts and crypto-asset transactions between tax authorities. Under the AEOI Standard, participating jurisdictions collect information from their financial institutions and crypto-asset service providers on the basis of a common set of due diligence and reporting requirements and automatically exchange such information in a predefined format with the country of residence of the account holders and crypto-asset users.
