The Republic of Bulgaria has joined the OECD’s international initiatives to combat tax evasion and tax avoidance
02 November 2015 Events and DiscussionsThe Republic of Bulgaria has joined the international initiatives of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development to combat tax evasion and tax avoidance through automatic exchange of information for tax purposes – the Convention on Mutual Administrative Cooperation in Tax Matters, the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information and the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information on tax purposes
Bulgaria’s official accession was announced during the Global Forum, which took place on October 29th and 30th, 2015. Thus, the number of jurisdictions that have signed the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information has increased to 74, with 50 of them starting to apply from the 1st of January 2016, and the rest from 2017 and 2018. Bulgaria is among the countries committed to make the necessary changes in their national legislation and to exchange information for tax purposes starting from 2017.
On the one hand, joining the initiatives for transparency and exchange of information ensures the participation of the Republic of Bulgaria in the global automatic exchange of financial information for tax purposes, and on the other hand increases the reputation of our country as a country that follows and applies high standards of tax transparency and is a credible partner, who supports the international efforts against cross-border tax evasion, tax avoidance and tax frauds.
In addition, Bulgaria demonstrates its commitment to implementing the OECD tax policy standards by joining its key instruments. This is an important step in the process of intensifying the cooperation with the organisation.