We wrote about the automatic data exchange system in the European Union in our previous article. Now we examine in detail the measures on the global scale.

Based on the direction of the improvement of the most recent regulation on an international level, we can say that ever less countries might be in a position to guarantee a secured protection for the information regarding the financial assets located in the respective country thus making it more difficult for the tax authorities to impose a tax burden on these assets.

Above all the OECD advocates the measures increasing financial transparency, thus the simplification of the exchange of tax related information. There have been of course bilateral treaties enabling the data exchange between the two signing states. However OECD aims to increase the efficiency of the data exchange and taking it to the global level, therefore the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (MCAA)) and the recommendation for it’s implementation containing the detailed rules for the process (Standard for Automatic Exchange of Information (SAEOI)) have been created.

The treaty enables the states to share automatically the financial data concerning a person with residence in one signatory country with the authorities of another state.

The MCAA has already 78 signatory states (among them Hungary) which would allow the data exchange from 2017 or 2018 (differently in every particular case). Hungary puts the probable beginning of application to 2017.

The significance of the treaty is increased by the fact, that such countries have signed it which previously – some of them were well known for that – stood out for the banking secrecy and the integrity and protection of other financial data. Among them for example the – in many aspects iconic – Switzerland and Liechtenstein; or small island states well known for their favourable tax regimes like Cyprus, Cayman Islands or Mauritius; or autonomous regions like British Virgin Islands, Gibraltar, Guernsey, etc.