Europe moved closer to ending banking secrecy on Wednesday after Austria dropped objections to sharing data on foreign depositors and the EU focused on negotiating a similar agreement with Switzerland, reports Reuters.
"It's a bad day for tax cheats," Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann told reporters at a meeting of EU leaders to discuss fighting tax fraud. "We will act jointly and I believe we will manage the exchange of data by the end of the year."
According to R, Luxembourg and Austria had not wanted to reveal the names of account holders to other countries and instead allow banks to withhold tax, but under pressure from their European partners both have now agreed to sign up to the code.
I knew one of the guys at the IRS who was in charge of getting all these agreements put in place with foreign banks. The Swiss capitulated rather easily. I had lived in Austria and I remembered their awesome banking secrecy laws. So I asked him about Austria. He said Austria was something entirely different and they weren't having much luck. Too bad the Austrians gave in. I suppose it was only a matter of time.
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