Exchange Of Information: A Violation Of Fundamental Rights?

Walter Stresemann, Managing Director of Vistra Geneva, recently produced this article for the Association Romande des Intermédiaires Financiers (ARIF) Newsletter. Walter is Treasurer and a member of the ARIF Committee which  is a private non-profit association of public utility, whose purpose is to assist in the prevention of and the fight against money laundering in relation with the Swiss Federal Act on Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in the Financial Sector (MLA).

The global movement of recent years towards greater tax transparency has thrust upon us the automatic exchange of tax information ("AEOI"), embodied in the OECD's Common Reporting Standards ("CRS"). In effect, the edicts of the OECD, a non-elected organization of bureaucrats, have shifted tax information from away from national parliaments to new "international common standards".