January 18th, 2010
“Bank Secrecy”
The progress report issued by the OECD on April 2 de 2009, following the G20 London Summit, surprisingly included Costa Rica as one of the jurisdictions that has not committed to implement the internationally agreed tax standard. The standard requires exchange of information on request in all tax matters for the administration and enforcement of domestic tax law without regard to bank secrecy. Therefore, since the Costa Rican legal system only allows to lift the bank secrecy upon a judicial resolution, that provides the existence of circumstantial evidence of fraud, OECD considered our commitment to be insufficient.
Following the publication of this blacklist, the Costa Rican Government immediately committed to propose a bill of law that will allow to lift bank secrecy for tax purposes without the participation of a judicial authority. As a result, on April 7, OECD moved Costa Rica to the category of jurisdictions that have committed to the internationally agreed tax standard, but have not yet substantially implemented. Nevertheless, the Government´s commitment has faced a hard opposition, as the banking sector considers the pledge to be not only illegal, but also unnecessary and inconvenient.
Finally our government admitted the objections of the banking sector, and maintained the participation of a judge that is to authorize the opening of the bank secrecy, in regards to their clients.
