Spanish Tax Office signs tax information exchange agreement with Isle of Man

This exchange extends to the information held by banks, other financial institutions and any individual acting as a representative or trustee. It also covers information relating to the legal owner and effective beneficiary of companies.

The agreement falls in line with those signed in November with the representatives for Guernsey and Jersey at the Spanish Embassy in London. These agreements were made possible after the United Kingdom authorised the three British Crown Dependencies to negotiate and sign them on their own behalf.

 The new information exchange agreements between Spain and the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey represent significant progress in terms of tax fraud prevention tools and will have an important effect in the fight against international tax fraud.

Under such agreements, formulated within the framework of the OECD model agreement on tax information exchange, the territories undertake to obtain and provide all information of possible interest for determining, settling and collecting taxes, the collection and execution of tax claims and the investigation or bringing to trial of tax-related cases. Banking secrecy will not be applicable. Once the agreements come into effect and the exchange of information begins, these territories will no longer be considered as tax havens.

As for Spain, the agreement will cover any State tax, including personal income tax, non-resident tax, corporate income tax, wealth tax, inheritance and donation tax, the tax on asset transfer and documented legal acts, value added tax and special taxes, as well as the local income and wealth taxes.

Administrative assistance

In addition to the afore-mentioned agreements, these three dependencies are also subject to the OECD and Council of Europe agreement on mutual administrative assistance in tax matters (multi-lateral agreement). This multi-lateral agreement is currently in force in 71 countries and jurisdictions.

Spain is highly active on the international stage, defending the principles of transparency and information exchange. In recent years, numerous international agreements and accords have been reached to ensure the exchange of information. Among the agreements to avoid international double taxation that include an information exchange clause are the current agreements signed with Canada, Uzbekistan, Oman, Nigeria, Senegal, the Dominican Republic, Cyprus, the United Kingdom and Argentina, as well as agreements signed with Andorra, the USA and India, and those agreed with Qatar and Austria. In turn, the information exchange agreements include those with Monaco and Macao.

"Automatic" information

Besides the multi-lateral agreement and the bilateral agreements and accords, Spain has promoted the development of a new automatic and standardised information exchange standard at a multilateral scale. In this regard, it signed a multilateral agreement in Berlin in 2014, together with another 50 countries and jurisdictions, to effectively implement this automatic exchange of information. It has now been signed by 74 countries and jurisdictions, including the three British Crown Dependencies, which, like Spain, have undertaken to complete a first automatic exchange of information in September 2017, containing data collected for financial year 2016.