Singapore Rated Overall Compliant With International Standards On Exchange Of Information

1. Singapore’s exchange of information upon request regime has been rated as compliant with international tax transparency standards, by the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (“Global Forum”). This is the highest overall rating a jurisdiction can receive. The assessment is conducted through a peer review process of Singapore’s exchange of information regime by the Global Forum which currently has more than 150 member jurisdictions.
   
    

2. This rating affirms that Singapore’s regime for exchange of information on request (“EOIR”) is fully in line with internationally-agreed standards, and is transparent.
   
    

3. The Global Forum has assessed Singapore’s regime and noted the following:

• Singapore has in place appropriate legislation requiring availability of all relevant information, including on beneficial owners, of relevant entities and arrangements.

• Singapore carries out adequate supervisory and enforcement measures to ensure that the relevant information is available in practice as required.

• Singapore tax authority’s access powers are broad and allow provision of all types of requested information to its EOI partners in line with the standard.

• Singapore conducted timely and effective EOI with its EOI partners.

• Singapore is valued by its EOI partners as an important and reliable partner.

4.       Minister for Finance, Mr Heng Swee Keat, said: “We are glad to have such an outcome of Global Forum’s robust peer review of Singapore’s EOIR regime. This outcome is in line with Singapore’s commitment to multilateralism – we uphold international tax standards, just as we have a strong rule of law domestically. Singapore is and will remain firmly committed to the international tax transparency standards in combating cross border tax evasion”.

MINISTRY OF FINANCE

25 October 2018

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Background

The Global Forum, under the auspice of the OECD, is the leading multilateral tax body mandated to ensure that jurisdictions around the world adhere to and effectively implement the international tax transparency standards. This objective is achieved through a robust monitoring and an in-depth peer review process by its members.

The peer review process evaluates jurisdictions’ compliance with the international standard of transparency on EOIR. The standard provides for exchange on request of information foreseeably relevant for carrying out the provisions of a tax agreement, or to the administration or enforcement of the domestic tax laws of a requesting jurisdiction.

Jurisdictions are peer-reviewed by the Global Forum periodically. The last such peer review of Singapore by Global Forum was in 2013. You may refer to MOF’s press statement for more details: https://www.mof.gov.sg/Newsroom/Press-Releases/Global-Forum-Completes-Peer-Review-of-Singapore's-International-Tax-Cooperation-Framework.

The latest assessment is based on Global Forum’s updated standards called the 2016 Terms of Reference (“2016 TOR”), which forms the basis for the peer review. The 2016 TOR requires jurisdictions to be assessed on (a) availability of ownership, accounting and banking information; (b) access to information by IRAS; and (c) exchanging information with EOI partners in an effective manner.

The full peer review report on Singapore can be found at http://www.eoi-tax.org/jurisdictions/SG#peerreview.