PH to join tax info sharing plan

THE PHILIPPINES will take part in a global initiative allowing automatic inter-government exchange of taxpayers’ detailed financial information.

Commissioner Kim S. Jacinto-Henares of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) told the Inquirer last week that the Philippines was one of the 90 countries that would implement the “Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in Tax Matters” or Common Reporting Standard (CRS) spearheaded by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The OECD said more than 50 countries “have committed to a specific and ambitious timetable leading to the first automatic information exchanges in 2017.”

In the case of the Philippines, the CRS would be implemented by 2018, Henares said.

“We have an ongoing pilot project with the Australian Taxation Office aiding to help prepare us to be ready for it,” the BIR chief disclosed.

According to the OECD, the CRS “calls on governments to obtain detailed account information from their financial institutions and exchange that information automatically with other jurisdictions on an annual basis.”

This month, the OECD launched a web portal on automatic exchange of information, which provides a comprehensive overview of inroads made as far as the CRS initiative is concerned.