Hans-Rudolf Merz, Swiss president and finance minister
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz signed a new double-taxation treaty with his French counterpart, Christine Lagarde in Bern 27 August. The new treaty is the thirteenth Switzerland has signed since March, after Luxembourg and Denmark.
It brings Switzerland in line with the OECD standards for administrative assistance in cases of tax fraud, according to the Swiss government. Lagarde said in Bern that banking secrecy can no longer be used by one of the two states to refuse to provide information.
Some commentators noted that France could demand information about a client without even naming the bank. The consequences of this treaty are potentially very important for Geneva: French clients are the most important for Geneva’s banks.
Switzerland committed itself to signing at least 12 new treaties in order to be removed from the grey list of countries and territories deemed “non cooperative” by the OECD.
Related: Le Temps, NZZ (Ger), TSR , Swiss government press release
This work by genevalunch.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.
News story, GenevaLunch, 28 August 2009.
Filed under: Society
Tags: banks, Christine Lagarde, Denmark, double taxation treaty, finance minister, France, Geneva, grey list, Hans-Rudolf Merz, Luxembourg, non cooperative countries, OECD, Swiss government, tax fraud
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