국가 간 조세정보교환의 발전방향과 현안

Abstract

International tax evasion and tax avoidance are increasing rapidly due to an unprecedented liberalization and globalization of national economies. Countries have increasingly resorted to improved and broadened cooperation in tax matters. A key element of international cooperation in tax matters is exchange of information. Therefore it is important to identify the global trends of exchange of information in order to not only combat international tax avoidance but also fortify tax cooperation on which an open world economy depends. Political interest has increasingly focused on the opportunities provided by automatic exchange of information. Automatic exchange of information involves the systematic and periodic transmission of bulk taxpayer information by the source country to the residence country concerning various categories of income, including dividends, interest, royalties, salaries and pensions. There are a limited number of situations where the legal obligation to supply information is lifted: tax secrecy, reciprocity, public policy, business secrets, and legal professional privilege. These limitations should still be applied in automatic exchange of information. The automatic exchange of information has already been implemented in the European Union and the United States according to the Savings Directive and the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (‘FATCA’), respectively. Korea fully enforces the international standard for transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes. Therefore, in the report of peer review conducted by the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, Korea has been assigned a rating for each of the 100 essential elements as well as an overall rating. Nevertheless, majorities of tax treaties which Korea has entered into have not been updated to catch up the latest OECD Model Tax Convention. In addition, only 3 Tax Information Exchange Agreements (‘TIEA’) are currently in effect. Thus Korea has to put more efforts to update the tax treaties and expand its Tax Information Exchange Agreement network. Pursuing exchange of information, attention should be given to possible conflicts with domestic rules. Efforts are required to keep compliance costs as low as possible and to work with counter parties to solve the cost issues.