Pursuing real tax havens such as Caribbean Islands and the U.S. state of Delaware at the level of the Group of 20 countries is more important than criticizing Austria, which will push back to protect its banking secrecy laws, Austrian finance minister Maria Fekter said Friday.
"The G-20 never, never accepted the information exchange [for bank accounts] and they never did any step to close the money laundering in all the islands, like the Cayman islands, the Virgin islands or [in] the U.S. in Delaware," she told reporters at a meeting of European Union finance ministers in Dublin.
It isn't acceptable putting "pressure on small countries and their traditions, even on those countries who are fulfilling all the OECD standards," she said, referring to the standards of the grouping of industrialized countries the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Austria "never has, and never will," be on a blacklist as a tax haven, she said, hitting back at critics as her country becomes increasingly isolated in a EU drive to clamp down on tax evasion and fraud.
Five countries including the U.K., France and Germany, have pushed the issue of bank secrecy to the top of the EU economic agenda as governments struggle to find cash. They've written to the European Commission pressing for a broader agreement on finding tax evaders by automatically exchanging information about accounts.
"We do not want automatic exchange of account data, like these five powers are calling for, it's not just names and account numbers, but also bank balances," she said. "That alone, that all account transactions would be exchanged, means I stand firm once more--we will not go into this data cemetery."
Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan, said earlier he hopes to "commence the conversation" on Europe tightening the rules on tax information exchange during the informal meeting here. Ireland is hosting the talks in its role as holder of the EU's rotating presidency. Mr. Noonan said the discussion would look at how measures on tax information exchange "can be further formalized."
Ms. Fekter said that while Austria does not have a problem with certain exchanges under specific conditions, the ideas are currently far too vague.
"Where we will push back, is where the impact on our position regarding data exchange and banking secrecy is not clearly defined," she said. "The formulation here is not clear enough... Luxembourg is criticizing that and so are we."
Copyright 2013 Dow Jones Newswires
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Austria Finance Minister: G-20 Should Tackle Real Tax Havens Like Cayman Islands, Delaware
