Singapore, Australia to share data to reduce tax evasion

SINGAPORE and Australia have taken another step to jointly support greater tax transparency and fight tax evasion.

IRAS (the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore) and ATO (the Australian Taxation Office) said on Tuesday that they have entered into a Competent Authority Agreement on the automatic exchange of financial account information (AEIO) based on the Common Reporting Standard (CRS).

The CRS is an internationally-agreed standard for AEOI, endorsed by OECD and the Global Forum for Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes. More than 100 jurisdictions globally have endorsed the CRS and will commence AEOI in either 2017 or 2018.

Singapore and Australia will commence AEOI under the CRS by September 2018.

Under the agreement, IRAS will automatically exchange with the ATO, financial information of accounts in Singapore held by Australian tax residents, and the ATO will automatically exchange with IRAS, financial information of accounts in Australia held by Singapore tax residents.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, IRAS and ATO said that both countries are satisfied with the confidentiality rules and data safeguards that are in place to ensure the confidentiality of information exchanged and prevent its unauthorised use.