Tax+Information+Exchange+Agreement+(TIEA)

=**Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs)**= toc The **Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs)** is designed by **[|OECD]** Global Forum Working Group on Effective Exchange on Information to promote international co-operation in tax matters through exchange of information. The purpose of the agreement is to migrate business with economies that do not **cooperate** in the exchange of information. The instrument (TIEAs) are not a binding agreement but contains two models for bilateral agreements. The TIEAs represent the commonly agreed standards of exchange of tax information which provides an established framework for equal and fair field of play for any parties involved.

The goal of the working group was to develop a legal instrument which would allow effective exchange of information. The working group consisted of representatives from **OECD Member countries** as well as representatives from **Aruba, Bermuda, Bahrain, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Isle of Man, Malta, Mauritius, the Netherlands Antilles, the Seychelles**, and **San Marino**.

History behind the Tax Information Exchange Agreements
The initiative to a standardized agreement on information sharing was undertaken by **[|OECD]** as regarding the matter that lack of effective exchange of information is one of key factors conducting to harmful tax practices. The TIEAs were released in April 2002 after substantial research and discussions between the involved parties. One of the main report supporting the development of the agreement was the OECD report I mproving Access to Bank Information for Tax Purposes released in year 2000.

General form of the Agreement
The Tax Information Exchange Agreements are in its purest form a **multilateral agreement** which a party submits to several **jurisdiction**s with which the party is hoping to sign an agreement on exchange of tax information with. However the actual form of the agreement is bundled **bilateral agreements** between two parties. The initial process of conducting the agreement between the parties is ignited with the multilateral agreement sent to several recipients but every contract is conducted with the original sender and not cross with all recipients, which makes the agreement a bilateral contract. The multilateral agreement does not need to be officially signed, however it has to be ratified by the contracting parties which would mean that the parties have mutually identified the initial agreement. However, the bilateral contracts have to be signed by both parties before these contracts enter into force. The TIEAs would generally be bundled bilateral agreements between two jurisdictions with the bilateral agreements specifying the initial agreement.

Important parts of the Agreements
The scope and objective of the TIEAs are to assist in tax matters regarding exchange of information which will help the contracting parties to administer and enforce their tax laws. The TIEAs supports exchange of information that is foreseeably relevant to achieving the before mentioned goals. The multilateral agreement applies to direct taxes on income and profit, taxes on capital, taxes on net wealth, and estate, inheritance, or gift taxes. The bilateral agreements has to cover at least the same for categories of direct taxes, unless the parties agree on waiving one or more of them. The contracting parties may also agree upon possible extension to cover also indirect taxes described as "taxes of every kind and description" which is defined in the [|article 26] of the OECD model Convention on Income and on Capital.

The Agreement is also built so that it at the same time promotes relevant information sharing and excludes possibilities to engage in fishing expeditions by the contracting parties or to request information that is unlikely to be of importance. The Agreements build on the policy of requesting information, rather than being an agreement on automatic and spontaneous exchange on information. Information can be requested when it relates to a particular investigation or examination and the request has to include sufficient information on the issue. Information can be requested on both civil issues as well as on criminal investigations, and event though the request may by declined by the requested party on certain grounds an information request must not be refused on the basis that the tax claim to which it relates is disputed. The applicant party and the requested party are both to respect confidentiality regarding the information due to protection of the legitimate interest of taxpayers. Nevertheless even information possessed by banks and other financial institutions are not protected even though this information might be protected from the public by bank secrecy policies. Bank information included in information exchange typically include account, financial, and transaction information, including parties to financial transactions, as well as information on the identity or legal structure of account holders. Under the contract the parties should have the authority to obtain and obligation to provide information about any person with a right to share some income or gain of the structure of an account, no matter if the account is classified as a company, a partnership, a trust, a foundation or a person similar to a trust or foundation, or even if it is an entity of purely contractual nature. Article 7 in the TIEAs does highlight that the information sharing can be rejected if it may result in discrimination between nationals of the requested party and identically placed nationals of the applicant party or there is strong possibility that the information may be used for discriminatory purposes. However the agreements are structured to make efficient exchange of information possible and preventing abusive behavior of any of the involved parties.

Most of the specifications of the articles included in the multilateral agreements are specified vis- à-vis in the bilateral agreements between the contracting parties e.g. conducting examinations abroad, cost structures , implementing supportive legislation , language of information exchange , other international agreements or arrangements , mutaul agreement procedures , where to deposit the instruments , and when they come into force , as well as how to terminate an agreement or make modifications to them.

Latest Development and future of TIEAs
On the latest (6th) Global Meeting of the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters arranged by the OECD in [|Jakarta], [|Indonesia], on November 22nd-23rd, 2013, the main topic discussed was the discussion of shifting from the bilateral agreements to multilateral cooperation. The shifting from exchanging information on request to more automatic exchange of information was the other big issue for discussion

Signatory jurisdictions of the Agreements
The OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes is the main depository institution for the the TIEAs and also the institutional organ following the global tax transparency matter. Countries with their respective agreements can be found on their pages. Many of these jurisdictions are earlier been classified as tax havens and unco-operative jurisdictions by OECD. The most recent signatory jurisdictions since November 22nd, 2013, are Liechtenstein and San Marino which agreed on the terms of the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters.