The globalization of economies and the increase in cross-border operations has been a great challenge that tax administrations have had to face. The last few years have been key in terms of increasing the transparency of international information and consolidating all information exchanges promoted in the European Union and within the OECD .

As a result of consensus in the international community and a determined political will, several initiatives have been launched in the field of international exchange of tax information, which are already resulting in tax administrations having access to a large amount of cross-border data. . In this way, the international exchange of tax information has been consolidated as a fundamental tool for the effective application of tax systems.

Indeed, in the last decade we have witnessed the modification of several international Conventions and Agreements, as well as the adoption of other new instruments, which have allowed the international exchange of information to become increasingly broader in terms of countries and jurisdictions. included and as to the categories and nature of the information exchanged. Likewise, the strengthening of automatic exchanges of information exchange has been of great relevance in this evolution.

First of all, it is worth mentioning the rapid expansion of international tax exchange relations under the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters of the OECD and the Council of Europe (MAC) as amended by the 2010 Protocol, which entered into force on June 1, 2011. The great potential of this Convention is its multilateral approach, which has allowed relations of cooperation and exchange of information to be established between the 144 territories that have signed it to date, without the need to sign bilateral instruments that provide for the information exchange. In addition, the Convention provides for broader forms of tax cooperation and a more extensive exchange of information, ensuring the uniform application of the international standard of exchange of information with the aim of combating tax avoidance and evasion.

At the level of the European Union, in addition to the exchange of information included in the scope of VAT , established in Regulation 904/2010, it is worth mentioning the consolidation of automatic exchanges between Member States , which allow Spain to receive information on different categories of income obtained abroad by taxpayers residing in Spain. Thus, the Tax Agency has been receiving automatically, by virtue of Council Directive 2011/16/EU, of February 15, 2011, relating to administrative cooperation in the field of direct taxation (known as DAC1) information on pensions, income from dependent employment, director's fees and property ownership and real estate income obtained in the Member States. Along with this, it should be noted that the Tax Agency was already receiving information on income and assets held in those countries with which Spain had signed agreements to avoid double taxation in which the automatic exchange of income was foreseen.

Spain signed the Protocol amending the MAC on March 11, 2011, which came into force on January 1, 2013, and in this way, established the broadest exchange relations with all the signatory territories of the Convention. Under its protection, as well as the network of bilateral Treaties and EU cooperation Directives, the AEAT has been receiving an increasing volume of information with fiscal relevance in relation to assets, rights and income that are located or have been obtained abroad.

Subsequently, a new information exchange standard was established, the automatic exchange of financial accounts, better known as the Common Reporting Standard or by its acronym in English, Common Reporting Estándar (CRS ), whose immediate antecedent was the Agreement between the Kingdom of Spain and the United States of America for the improvement of international tax compliance with the implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act - FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act). Under the latter, Spain carried out the first automatic exchange of financial accounts in September 2015 with the United States (FATCA).

For the implementation of the CRS, Spain signed the Multilateral Agreement between Competent Authorities on automatic exchange of financial account information , in Berlin on October 29, 2014 (CRS). At the level of the European Union, Council Directive 2014/107/EU of December 9, 2014 (known as DAC 2) was approved to incorporate the automatic exchange standard to the EU Cooperation Directive.

It should be noted that Spain was a pioneer in the automatic exchange of financial accounts (CRS) developed by the OECD and promoted by the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information (of which 164 are currently part jurisdictions). In this way, at the end of September 2017, Spain participated in the automatic exchange of financial accounts with the 49 jurisdictions initially committed. In September 2018, there were already 100 participants in this exchange and, in the last exchange that took place, during the month of September 2021, there were 108 countries and jurisdictions committed to exchanging information on financial accounts.

Likewise, it is noteworthy that in the list of countries and jurisdictions participating in the aforementioned Multilateral CRS Agreement and, therefore, exchanging information on financial accounts with other countries, we find the main international financial centers. This is an example of the great change that has occurred in the panorama of international tax exchange. Jurisdictions in which banking secrecy was a reality years ago are now exchanging financial accounts with the countries of residence of their owners and automatically, that is, without there having to be a prior investigation in the country of residence.

Under these legal instruments, the Tax Agency receives financial information related to the ownership, balances, dividends, interests, amortizations and other capital income obtained in any of the 107 countries and foreign jurisdictions by taxpayers residing in Spanish territory. All this flow of international information that the Tax Agency receives annually is incorporated into the databases and, together with the rest of the national information, allows verification of correct compliance with taxpayers' obligations, guaranteeing the effective application of our tax system.

In short, the consolidation of the exchange of financial account information together with the broader exchange that takes place within the European Union allows important progress to be made both in the work of preventing future non-compliance, promoting voluntary compliance, and in the fight against tax fraud.