Bank lobby decries regulation “overload”

The Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) has waded into the ongoing anti-tax evasion political debate by urging lawmakers not to burden banks with too many regulations. The SBA said on Thursday that it supported the introduction of automatic tax data sharing with other countries. However, the lobby group remains firmly against complementary measures to make banks step up efforts to identify untaxed funds that come from abroad. Parliament yesterday began to debate the automatic exchange of tax information (AIE) bill. This proposes sharing bank data with foreign clients’ home countries to determine if taxes have been paid on assets parked in Switzerland. If passed, the system will come into effect at the start of 2018. But Switzerland is unlikely to share such information with all countries. In June, the government said it wanted banks to step up internal due diligence on clients from countries that will not have AIE agreements with Switzerland. The government hopes that ...