BERN: The European Union official in charge of tax policy tried to persuade Switzerland yesterday to agree to surrender more information about clients of its big banking industry as part of a drive to combat tax evasion.
Commissioner Algirdas Semeta’s meeting with Swiss Finance Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf here came as British Prime Minister David Cameron was due to put his aim of fighting tax evasion on the agenda of a G8 summit.
“It is widely accepted worldwide today that the era of bank secrecy is over,” Semeta said after the talks. “Switzerland can gain from a stronger tax agreement with the EU with automatic exchange of information at its core. It would be a clear signal from Switzerland that it supports fair play.”
Switzerland, the world’s biggest offshore financial centre, with $2 trillion in assets under management, is under pressure from both the EU and the United States to end bank secrecy as cash-strapped states seek to stop tax evasion.
The issue has become even more heated in recent months as US authorities threaten to indict Swiss banks, a French minister quit over his Swiss account and Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness admitted evading taxes through a Swiss bank.
EU finance ministers last month gave the European Commission the go-ahead to negotiate with Switzerland, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Andorra and Monaco to expand the kind of client information banks must surrender to tax authorities.
Widmer-Schlumpf said the Swiss government would probably only be able to start formal talks with the EU in the autumn and would push for global standards on data exchange at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. “For Switzerland it is important that we continue to engage ourselves for a level playing field, not just within the EU but beyond the EU,” she said.
Reuters
