Germany and Switzerland near agreement on undisclosed assets
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble said, on 3 September 2010, that Germany and Switzerland are likely to conclude an agreement on the tax treatment of German citizens' unreported bank accounts in Switzerland before the end of October.
Under the proposed agreement, Switzerland would apply a withholding tax on the bank accounts of German citizens and provide greater administrative assistance on tax matters to German authorities but without adopting automatic exchange of tax information. When the agreement is in place, German authorities will no longer buy stolen bank data to learn about German citizens' hidden assets in Switzerland.
Schauble said that he and Swiss Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz had already agreed on the most important aspects of the pending agreement but that some details must still be finalised by the negotiating teams. Schauble said he hoped to sign the agreement while Merz is still in office. Merz announced in August that he would step down in October.
Schauble and Merz initialed, on 26 March, a protocol to modify the information exchange provisions of the 1971 Germany-Switzerland tax treaty to conform to the OECD standard, and the two countries are also in talks on a new tax treaty.
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