Austria has now officially been removed from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) “gray list” of countries Deemed uncooperative in international tax matters.
Indeed, Austria now appears on the OECD’s much-coveted “white list” of countries that have fulfilled the organization’s 12 official requirement to conclude double tax or tax information exchange agreements, Providing for administrative assistance in tax matters under Article 26 of the OECD Model Convention .
According to the Austrian Finance Ministry, Austria has in fact exceeded expectations, having signed 15 bilateral agreements In accordance with the OECD on tax information exchange standard.
Austria gave the go-ahead for the creation of legislation to relax its traditional banking secrecy laws and conform with OECD standards on tax information exchange at the beginning of the month, and has, since then, been busily Negotiating bilateral agreements ahead of the G20 summit meeting. However, it has made clear that its traditional bank secrecy laws will only be lifted for those accounts held by non-residents who are not subject to Austrian tax.