G20 Nations Set To Agree Tax Information Exchange Protocol

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

03 November 2004

The issue of tax information exchange will figure prominently on the agenda of a meeting between the G20 nations in Berlin later this month, German Finance Minister Hans Eichel has revealed.

According to Eichel, the G20 governments are set to agree to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's standard for the exchange of tax information between national tax authorities at the conference, which runs from November 19 to 21.

"At the conference we'll arrange that all G20 states take it upon themselves to apply the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's information standard on questions of tax," explained Eichel, according to Reuters.

However, this arrangement will not yet include Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland.

Eichel revealed that he expects that the decision by the bigger nations to adopt the OECD protocol will still have consequences for the smaller countries, and noted that this state of affairs “is how it must be.”

In addition to the G7 group of wealthy nations, the G20 comprises many established and emerging economies, such as China, Russia and Brazil.

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