Switzerland and Canada on February 4 signed a joint declaration to work toward implementing automatic exchange of information on the financial accounts of each others’ residents in accordance with the OECD common reporting standard.
The two countries said they intend to start collecting data in 2017, and begin transmitting the data in 2018.
To move the agreement forward, each country must enact laws to enable the exchange. The Swiss government said it will initiate a consultation on introducing automatic exchange with Canada and will follow up by submitting a federal decree to Parliament for approval.
Switzerland signed the common reporting standard multilateral competent authority agreement on November 19, 2014; Canada signed the agreement on June 3, 2015.
In October 2014 the Swiss Federal Counsel said that automatic exchange of information would be initiated with selected countries by means of separate agreements. “In an initial phase, consideration will be given to countries with which there are close economic and political ties and which, if appropriate, provide their taxpayers with sufficient scope for regularisation,” the Federal Council said.
The Swiss government has so far signed similar declarations with the EU, Australia, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Iceland, Norway, and Japan.
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