A seminar was held on 10 September where Andreas Økland presented his latest research: How Much Offshore Wealth is Captured by Automatic Exchange of Information? Evidence From Aggregate Administrative Data (Authors: Hjalte Boas, Matt Collin, Sarah Godar, Carolina Moura, Andreas Økland)
Abstract of the presentation:
In the effort to curb bank secrecy and offshore tax evasion, more than 100 countries now automatically exchange financial account information with foreign tax authorities under the Common Reporting Standard (CRS). This global automatic information exchange regime can only eliminate bank secrecy and pose a credible threat to offshore tax evasion if its coverage is sufficiently broad. Yet little is known about how much offshore wealth the regime actually captures. We compile new aggregated CRS statistics from 26 countries, covering roughly 33% of the total volume exchanged within the regime. We first show that foreign financial wealth remains highly concentrated in offshore tax havens. We then combine our CRS statistics with recent country-level estimates of offshore financial wealth to estimate the coverage of the regime. Our results, from five countries where the data quality is good enough to provide credible estimates, suggest that the CRS covers, on average, about 82% of offshore financial wealth in CRS-participating tax havens, though coverage varies substantially across countries, ranging from 38% to 93%. While these differences highlight scope for improving the reach of automatic information exchange, we also document rapid growth in the volume and quality of CRS reporting in recent years, suggesting continued progress in the global effort to reduce offshore bank secrecy.