The Ministry of Finance stated that last year the Ministry completed its first provision to and received from Japan and Australia financial account information with respect to 2019. These matters are exercised by following strict international standards regarding the requirements to uphold confidentiality and data safeguards. They deepen bilateral cross-border tax cooperation and maintain the right of taxpayers who have paid their fair share of tax in accordance with laws.
The Ministry of Finance explained that in order to enhance tax transparency and respond to international organizations’ constant reviews, it actively expressed its willingness to cooperate in automatic exchange of financial account information with its treaty partners beginning in July 2017. By making use of the mutual agreement procedures and the exchange of information measures provided under their respective income tax agreements, Taiwan reached consensus with Japan and Australia that financial account information is to be automatically exchanged, based on the principle of reciprocity, by reference to provisions of the OECD’s Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in Tax Matters.
The Ministry of Finance further explained that according to the afore-mentioned consensuses, Taiwan committed to providing information to Japan and Australia every September from 2020 regarding reportable accounts held or controlled by Japanese or Australian residents and that were reported by its domestic financial institutions. Likewise, Japan and Australia also committed to providing reciprocal information to Taiwan. These first bilateral automatic exchanges took place in 2020 and are summarized as follows:
1. In the case of Japan
Currency: NT$
| Item | Number of Reportable Accounts | Total of Reportable Account Balance |
| Information provided by Taiwan associated with Japanese residents | 29,439 | 954.8 billion |
| Information provided by Japan associated with Taiwanese residents | 52,959 | 23.5 billion |
2. In the case of Australia
Currency: NT$
| Item | Number of Reportable Accounts | Total of Reportable Account Balance |
| Information provided by Taiwan associated with Australian residents | 8,258 | 106 billion |
| Information provided by Australia associated with Taiwanese residents | 189,533 | 94.1billion |
The Ministry of Finance emphasized that, according to provisions of relevant income tax agreements and the Regulations Governing the Exchange of Tax Information Concerning Agreements on Tax Matters, when Taiwan receives the aforementioned financial account information from its treaty partners, it must strictly enforce confidentiality and safeguard this data. The information cannot be disclosed to persons or authorities that are not dealing with taxation matters. In addition, on the basis of international practices, this kind of information may be used by the tax collection authorities for evaluating the risk of tax evasion and for selecting cases to be audited, but is forbidden to be used directly as evidence for assessing a tax liability. In order to protect the right of taxpayers, if a tax collection authority, based on the above-mentioned information, concludes that a case has a high risk in terms of tax evasion, that tax collection authority will still need to collect and find evidence in accordance with relevant laws and confirm the associated tax evasion violations accordingly before it can perform an assessment on the tax liability of the case. The Ministry of Finance urges taxpayers to file tax returns and pay taxes according to the tax laws and regulations. If there is any under-reporting of relevant taxes, taxpayers should present their supplementary tax declaration and their payment of taxes as early as possible. In the case that such taxpayers should suffer double taxation due to cross-border transactions, they may eliminate such a double taxation situation by taking advantage of Taiwan’s 33 income tax agreements.
Contact person: Mr. Kevin Pao, Section Chief.
Contact Number: +886-2-23228150