# EU Government Info Exchange ?



## globalcitizen99 (Apr 16, 2014)

Does anyone know if Spain and the UK, Germany exchange information
on if you own a property in Spain or other EU countries ?

What other info do the EU governments share ?


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## sawfc16 (Dec 5, 2014)

Hi

Yes... Spain and UK are signed up to exchange information. The country list is 57 at present and growing! The full list is available easily on the internet. There is a big push to try and make sure there is no 'hiding' place for anyone!


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## globalcitizen99 (Apr 16, 2014)

ok, can you post a link to the list ? thanks!


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

They all might be signed up but they'd only have a chance of finding out if you told them. They certainly wouldn't trawl every country looking for someone on the offchance that they have a property somewhere.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

gus-lopez said:


> They all might be signed up but they'd only have a chance of finding out if you told them. They certainly wouldn't trawl every country looking for someone on the offchance that they have a property somewhere.


How could anyone own a property in Spain without the authorities knowing about it? To buy one you need an NIE and in order to obtain one of those you fill in a form which states your nationality and your passport number (or national identity card number if you are from a country which has ID cards). I know that Hacienda send out letters to non-resident property owners pointing out that acccording to their records they are the owner of a property in Spain but have not submitted a non-resident tax return - because a former neighbour brought one for me to translate for him, in a bit of a panic! 

When you think about all the bits of information held by the various authorities - for example, if you transfer money from a UK bank to a Spanish one, they will know your bank details in Spain - if they manage to join up the dots it should be easy to exchange it.

The only people who might get away with it (as usual) are those who rent a property in Spain, never sign on the register of foreign residents or the padron. Although even they must need a Spanish bank account for paying rent and living expenses, so possibly their UK bank would be obliged to send the required information to Spain.


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## 90199 (Mar 21, 2010)

We bought our first property in the Canary Islands and did not have an N.I.E.


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## larryzx (Jul 2, 2014)

Hepa said:


> We bought our first property in the Canary Islands and did not have an N.I.E.


But when ?


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

And what about all those British pensioners who have their state pensions paid direct to Spanish bank accounts, whether they own a property in Spain or not? No problem with the British Government sending their details to Hacienda, I wouldn't think.


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## larryzx (Jul 2, 2014)

HMRC and Hacienda exchange info on a regular, probably even hourly, basis. The law in UK provides for such exchanges, whilst the police service cannot obtain tax info. even from HMRC. That is illegal under UK law.

The payment of pensions is made to a bank in UK by the government dept. concerned. The DWP used to, maybe still do, use City Bank. It is the bank which makes the actual transfer.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

larryzx said:


> HMRC and Hacienda exchange info on a regular, probably even hourly, basis. The law in UK provides for such exchanges, whilst the police service cannot obtain tax info. even from HMRC. That is illegal under UK law.
> 
> The payment of pensions is made to a bank in UK by the government dept. concerned. The DWP used to, maybe still do, use City Bank. It is the bank which makes the actual transfer.


But under the OECD Automatic Exchange of Financial Information agreement, all financial institutions - banks, pension providers, insurance companies, stockbrokers, investment trusts, etc. - will be required to provide very detailed information about the accounts and holdings of individuals to other countries, automatically and not simply when it is requested. The first such exchange is scheduled to be in 2017.


Final OECD standard for automatic exchange of tax information: PwC


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## 90199 (Mar 21, 2010)

larryzx said:


> but when ?



2001


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## 90199 (Mar 21, 2010)

All very well exchanging information, I wonder which countries if any provide the manpower to collate, analyze, and act upon the said information, few methinks.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

Hepa said:


> All very well exchanging information, I wonder which countries if any provide the manpower to collate, analyze, and act upon the said information, few methinks.


The collating and analysing gets done by computers these days!


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## 90199 (Mar 21, 2010)

Lynn R said:


> The collating and analysing gets done by computers these days!


And a computer is only as good as the information programmed into it, which of course takes many man hours, which costs. How many staff analyze the returns for the modelo 720, seventeen I was told.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

The information in this link relates to Italy, but as it's in English I offer it as an example of how sophisticated these systems are - it really doesn't involve hundreds of people manually entering data into a computer.


SOGEI - VIES and exchange between international tax authorities

I can quite imagine that Hacienda would not have that many people dealing with Modelo 720 returns. They can only be submitted online. All they need is the software to compare to the data they have on people's income tax returns, and any information they receive from other sources (such as the whistleblowers from foreign banks who they have paid for information, for example) which will spit out a list of exceptions (things that don't match) for them to follow up.


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## el pescador (Mar 14, 2013)

Not sure if FATCA is in place yet but about 40 countries are in a union to share details to catch tax evaders and help with looking for money laundering.


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