Austria defied growing pressure to follow Luxembourg in ending bank secrecy, after a group led by Europe’s six biggest countries pledged to work together to tackle tax havens.
Late on Friday, the finance ministers of Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Spain and Poland announced their desire to jointly push for more bank transparency, a message they will take to the meeting of the Group of 20 top global economies in Washington next week.
“Nobody can deny that bank secrecy is outdated, that we need an efficient system to tackle evasion strategies,” French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici told reporters, flanked by his counterparts from the other countries…
“We will fight for bank secrecy. We are no tax haven,” Fekter told reporters, placing her country in a minority of one during discussions on the issue among 27 EU ministers.
She defended Austria’s practice of imposing tax on interest paid to foreign savers, money collected and returned to their home country’s government – but with no names attached. The European Union wants information about accounts to be given.
“Our neighbours get their fair tax delivered,” she said, claiming that any automatic exchange of information would lead to an overload of data that would not be used.
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