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As part of the EU’s attempt to crack down on tax evasion, the EU Savings Tax Directive (ESD) was implemented as from 1 July 2005. The ESD is an agreement between the member States of the EU to automatically exchange information with each other about customers who earn savings income in one EU member sate but actually reside in another. Put simply, this means that if you live in the EU and have a bank account in any other EU country, details of you and the interest you earn will be passed to the tax authorities in your home country, who will undoubtedly check that you’ve been entering the information on your tax return. If you’ve not been declaring it, as a minimum they’ll be likely to look for payment of the outstanding tax and interest, along with penalties. Read the full article here.
Further Reading The EU Savings Tax Directive - An Investors Offshore Special
Report After the European Commission set out its wish-list for a new, improved (worsened, in other words) Savings Tax Directive in November, 2008, which included such impossibilities as the inclusion of Hong Kong and the USA, the European Parliament thought hard and produced a largely compliant - but extremely complex - opinion in April, 2009. In June, the EU Council issued an anodyne statement which appeared to welcome the Parliament's agreement to its plans. Since then there has been silence from Brussels. Read the full article here. |
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