Ireland to sign up to OECD property initiative
Ireland is one of 25 countries and territories that have committed themselves to joining an OECD initiative on the sharing of information on property assets between tax authorities.
In a joint statement, the countries welcomed the new Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Readily Available Information on Immovable Property (IPI MCAA) between tax authorities.
As well as Ireland, the list of countries includes Britain and large EU economies such as France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Brazil, Korea, and South Africa are also on the list, but not the US.
The 25 jurisdictions said that tax-policy developments in recent years had improved cross-border exchanges of tax information and international co-operation to combat offshore tax non-compliance and tax secrecy on financial accounts.
Tax transparency
“Despite these significant advances in automatic exchange of information, there is not yet a mechanism for jurisdictions to exchange information on non-financial assets, especially immovable property,” they added.
The statement described the broad adoption of the IPI MCAA is “an important step” towards tax transparency on non-financial assets.
“It will strengthen our ability to monitor and enforce tax compliance, and to combat tax evasion, which undermines public revenues and unfairly shifts the tax burden onto compliant taxpayers,” the countries stated.
The 25 territories on the list say that they aim to join the agreement by 2029 or 2030, subject to domestic procedures. They have also encouraged other jurisdictions to join.