Automatic exchange of information on bank accounts between tax authorities
Norway will continue to support and promote the OECD Common Reporting Standard (CRS) initiative for the automatic exchange of information on bank accounts between tax authorities.
Completion Status:
*commitment is not specific or/and not measurable
Commitment filtering:
The commitment is considered specific because it refers to a concrete initiative, the OECD Common Reporting Standards (CRS), and to a concrete area of work – the automatic exchange of information on bank accounts between tax authorities.
Although it is possible to check whether Norway still participates in the CRS, the commitment does not identify any measurable action on how the government aims to progress within this initiative. It is unclear what concrete actions are related to the promotion of the initiative, especially with regard to Norway’s own tax authorities. Norway’s Ministry of Finance reports that one of the ways in which the country has promoted the CRS is through participation in the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes. Norway has been part of the Global Forum Steering Group, which prepares and guides the forum’s future work, since 2019.[1] From communications with the Ministry of Finance, another way in which Norway has helped enhance the effective use of CRS information is by supporting the Global Forum’s capacity-building activities, providing technical and expert assistance.[2] For example, in 2019, a Norwegian data expert supported workshops with Colombian, Indonesian and Peruvian tax administrators, aimed at assessing and improving their capabilities for the collection, exchange, matching and use of CRS data.[3] Through the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), the country also contributes financially to the Global Forum’s capacity-building programme via voluntary contributions and grants.[4] Norway has been a member of the Global Forum since 2009.[5] However, as the commitment itself does not refer to these actions by Norway, it cannot be considered measurable in this regard.
[1] OECD – Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, Steering Group (last updated January 2021), https://www.oecd.org/tax/transparency/documents/GF-steering-group.pdf
[2] OECD – Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, Developing Capacities in Times of COVID-19, https://www.oecd.org/tax/transparency/documents/2021-Global-Forum-Capacity-Building-Report.pdf
[3] OECD, Developing Capacities in Times of COVID-19, p. 30, https://www.oecd.org/tax/transparency/documents/2021-Global-Forum-Capacity-Building-Report.pdf
[4] OECD, Developing Capacities in Times of COVID-19, p. 32, https://www.oecd.org/tax/transparency/documents/2021-Global-Forum-Capacity-Building-Report.pdf
[5] Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, https://www.oecd.org/tax/transparency/
Norway
