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Lebanon confirms its commitment towards greater tax transparency

 

12/05/2017 – Today, at the OECD Headquarters in Paris, Lebanon represented by Mr. Ghady El Khoury, Chargé d’affaires of the Embassy of Lebanon in France, signed the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (“The Convention”), therewith becoming the 111th jurisdiction to join the Convention. Lebanon deposited its instrument of ratification for the Convention at the same time.


Lebanon confirms its commitment towards greater tax transparencyMr. Ghady El Khoury, Chargé d’affaires of the Embassy of Lebanon in France and Mrs. Josée Fecteau, Deputy Director of the OECD Legal Directorate
OECD Headquarters, 12 May 2017

 

The Convention is the most powerful instrument for international tax cooperation. It provides for all forms of administrative assistance in tax matters: exchange of information on request, spontaneous exchange, automatic exchange, tax examinations abroad, simultaneous tax examinations and assistance in tax collection. It guarantees extensive safeguards for the protection of taxpayers' rights.

 

The Convention's impact grows with each new signatory; it also serves as the premier instrument for implementing the Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in Tax Matters developed by the OECD and G20 countries. The Convention will enable Lebanon to fulfil their commitment to begin the first of such exchanges by 2018.

 

The Convention can also be used to swiftly implement the transparency measures of the OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project such as the automatic exchange of Country-by-Country reports under Action 13 as well as the sharing of rulings under Action 5 of the BEPS Project. The Convention is also a powerful tool in the fight against illicit financial flows.

 

The Convention was developed jointly by the OECD and the Council of Europe in 1988 and amended in 2010 to respond to the call by the G20 to align it to the international standard on exchange of information and to open it to all countries, thus ensuring that developing countries could benefit from the new more transparent environment.

 

The 111 jurisdictions participating in the Convention can be found at: www.oecd.org/ctp/exchange-of-tax-information/Status_of_convention.pdf

 

Also, Lebanon has signed today the CRS Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement‎ (CRS MCAA), re-confirming its commitment to implementing the automatic exchange of financial account information pursuant to the OECD/G20 Common Reporting Standard (CRS) in time to commence exchanges in 2018. Lebanon is the 89th jurisdiction to sign the CRS MCAA.

 

Media queries should be directed to Pascal Saint-Amans, Director of the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration (+33 6 26 30 49 23).

 

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