VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter will fight "like a lion" to defend the country's banking secrecy, she told a newspaper, promising to veto any steps that endanger the centuries-old tradition.
Austria
is staunchly opposed to automatically exchanging information on
depositors with fellow European Union members who want to abolish
banking secrecy as a way to crack down on cross-border tax evasion.
It
taxes interest income at source and sends the proceeds back to the
depositor's home country without revealing any names, a system it
defends as being more efficient than exchanging personal information
with foreign governments.
But that model looks increasingly unsustainable since the rescue of Cyprus's banks.
It was Greece's sovereign debt crisis
that pushed Cypriot banks over the edge, but the failure also
underscored the risks of allowing offshore banking to become the
principle business of national lenders.
Luxembourg, the only
other EU member that refuses to automatically share data on banking
clients with EU peers, is ready to ease its secrecy rules and work more
closely with foreign tax authorities, Finance Minister Luc Frieden told a
German paper at the weekend.
Fekter took a much harder line in an interview with Austrian paper Oesterreich printed on Monday.
"I
am a hunter of tax cheats but also the protector of honest savers. It
is unjustified to open all the savings accounts of those who have done
nothing wrong. That is why I am fighting like a lion for banking
secrecy," she said.
She assumed Austria would keep its banking
secrecy for a long time, adding: "As minister I will not approve any
agenda item that jeopardises banking secrecy."
Most developed
countries, including Austria, already share some information on
taxpayers and depositors on demand, but since this requires the
authorities in a jurisdiction to suspect wrongdoing, it only has limited
impact in uncovering unlawful behaviour.
Automatic exchange of information allows tax authorities to more easily spot tax evasion or illicit money flows.
Austria
has already struck tax deals with neighbours Switzerland and
Liechtenstein that preserve tax secrecy and is about to embark on tax
talks with the United States, which is campaigning to track down the
offshore wealth of its citizens.
Should Vienna strike a deal with
Washington along the lines of one Switzerland signed this year - to
make banks disclose information about U.S. account holders - while
withholding similar information from its fellow EU members, it will be a
red flag for Brussels.
European tax commissioner Algirdas Semeta criticised Austrian banking secrecy policies in January and said Vienna would break the law if it adopted such selective disclosure.
(Reporting by Michael Shields; Additional reporting by Tom Bergin; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)
Reuters
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