Since the G20 declared in 2009 that “the era of bank secrecy is over”, jurisdictions have implemented an unprecedented range of measures designed to increase tax transparency by ensuring that information on foreign financial assets would be disclosed to tax authorities. This column presents the main results from a recent study on the impact of exchange of information on foreign-owned bank deposits in international financial centres. The findings highlight the effectiveness of the expansion of automatic exchange of information and provide evidence of the success of a comprehensive multilateral approach towards tax transparency.
By Pierce O’Reilly, Kevin Parra Ramirez and Michael A. Stemmer