Reuters: Regulatory News: Singapore to step up international cooperation on tax evasion

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Singapore to step up international cooperation on tax evasion May 14th 2013, 07:00 SINGAPORE | Tue May 14, 2013 3:00am EDT SINGAPORE May 14 (Reuters) - Singapore, the world's fourth-biggest offshore financial centre, said on Tuesday it will adopt new measures to make it easier to share information on potential tax evaders with other countries. The Southeast Asian city-state, keen to avoid the kind of onslaught over tax cheats being waged against Switzerland, said it will sign up to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) multilateral treaty on sharing tax details. It also plans to change the law so the tax office, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore, will not need a court order to get information from banks and trust companies sought by foreign governments, a joint statement by the central bank, the finance ministry and the tax authority said. Singapore, which hosts offices of the world's biggest banks, will adopt the OECD standards on information sharing in all of its existing bilateral tax agreements that do not already contain them, as long as the city-state gets reciprocity. Once the OECD-related measures are in place, Singapore will meet the international standards on tax information sharing with up to 84 different jurisdictions, up from the current 41. Those new countries include the United States and Brazil. Singapore is already bringing in stricter rules that compel financial institutions to identify accounts they strongly suspect hold the proceeds of fraudulent or wilful tax evasion and, where necessary, to close them before July 1. After that date, handling the proceeds of tax evasion will be a criminal offence under changes to Singapore's anti-money laundering law. Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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