Macau | City preparing to join OECD automatic financial exchange agreement – Financial bureau

The Macau government is preparing to sign the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information which will allow automatic tax information exchange with other members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

Macau (MNA) – The Financial Services Bureau (DSF) has informed Macau News Agency (MNA) that the Macau Chief Executive has delegated to the Secretary for Economy and Finance the authority to sign the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (MCAA) so that the territory can comply with Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) regulations.

“In order to promote international co-operation through automatic exchange of tax information, Mainland China has decided to extend the application of the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (MAC) to Macau SAR and Hong Kong SAR,’ the DSF has announced.

The multilateral tax agreement enables participating jurisdictions to exchange tax information automatically and in order to enable the MAC to come into effect the OECD has required the Macau Government to sign the MCAA.

The Macau Government is working with the OECD to undergo preparatory procedures for the signing of the MCAA, with no specific deadline for the signing having been provided by the DSF.

Last year, Macau was included among several regions listed as tax havens by the EU, although de-listed by the EU in January of this year.

This led the Macau SAR Government to pledge that it would improve the legal regime of its offshore business sector to enhance taxation and take administrative steps to facilitate financial information exchanges.

These measures involve the extension of the OECD tax information exchange agreement to Macau, with the Chinese central government having granted permission for the local government to join the agreement.

According to the DSF, once the agreement is signed, tax information will be shared automatically with the other 98 members of the OECD-Global Forum who have also signed the MAC agreement.

Current signatories of the agreement include Portugal and China, which has promised to make the first information exchange by September 2018.