The Portuguese Tax and Customs Authority (AT) will start exchanging information on operations involving crypto assets (e.g Bitcoin) with tax administrations in 47 countries or other jurisdictions, some of which do not belong to the European Union (EU) and are financial centers that have historically been viewed as tax havens.
The Portuguese state signed the commitment last Friday, and the exchange is supposed to take place from 2027 onwards, after EU member states took the first step in this direction.
The European Union has already reached an agreement so that, starting from January 2026, the tax authorities of 27 countries will exchange information on operations involving crypto-assets and electronic money, the knowledge of which by tax administrations may be relevant for the taxation of certain economic operations or activities. Which may go beyond the scope of its work despite its financial importance.
If engagement at the European level was born from a European directive that member states must put into effect by 31 December 2025 so that the first exchanges can take place the following year, the international agreement reached now appears multilateral and includes both European and international countries. . Those outside the union.
Participants who have joined this form of cooperation include, for example, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, South Africa and many regions that are considered tax havens or have greater financial resources. and financial uncertainty, such as Barbados, Belize, Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man and the Cayman Islands.
On the European side, there are several EU countries participating in the agreement: in addition to Portugal, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania and Luxembourg. Malta, Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
Among the EU member states, only Poland and Latvia did not sign the document.
Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, members of the Schengen Area, have entered into the agreement.
The exchange will be carried out between tax administrations and will follow the information exchange rules defined by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) specifically for digital assets, in the so-called “Cryptoassets Reporting Framework”, as explained by the Portuguese Tax Authority in a memorandum. Posted on the financial portal.
This initiative, which highlights tax authorities, represents “an important milestone in strengthening international cooperation to combat fraud and tax evasion on a global scale, and will enable tax administrations to automatically obtain information on income related to operations in crypto-assets obtained by taxpayers.” The new tool will be “another mechanism of great importance to strengthen the fight against fraud and tax evasion in Portugal and a more equitable distribution of the tax burden,” AT wrote.
At the European level, the exchange of information that will take place between the tax authorities of the Member States – which will precede that announced now – will depend on the information that crypto service providers will be obligated to report to each of these authorities.
Member States already exchange data on a range of information of financial importance (from data on bank account balances to data on bank account balances). Returns or data on ownership and income from real estate) and there is also a global data exchange for the same purpose.
The world of exchanged data was periodically revised and expanded, and it was this update that led to the reality of digital assets. In December 2022, the European Commission put forward a proposal that companies offering cryptocurrency exchanges be required to report transaction data to tax authorities, an initiative that ended up being approved by European governments in May of this year.
In the international agreement reached in November, the 47 jurisdictions also agreed to adopt, by 2027, “changes to the international standard for the automatic exchange of information on financial accounts, known as CRS – the Common Reporting Standard, which were agreed This year, within the framework of the International Agreement for the Automatic Exchange of Information on Financial Accounts. OECD scope,” explains Portuguese AT.
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