Russia was not included in the new list of countries which were approved for information exchange with UK.

According to the message of the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), UK has ceased the exchange of tax information with Russia. The above-mentioned statement provides a list of countries that UK shares tax data with. Russia is not mentioned in the list of countries for 2019.

Based on currently available information, suspension of the exchange was a unilateral decision of UK tax authorities. Russian authorities were only informed of the decision and no explanations of the reasons for this action were provided. However, it is important to note that the exchange of information with UK has not been stopped completely, as the Russian tax authorities still receive information based on separate requests.

British tax officials have an established “high-quality exchange of tax information on requests” system, as well as an automatic exchange of cross-country reports (CbCreporting) in accordance with the Multilateral Convention on Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters standards.

An automatic exchange system of tax information (Common Reporting Standard, CRS) was created by the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in 2014. In compliance with the CRS mechanism, any local financial institution collects and transfers to tax authorities information related to accounts of non-resident companies or accounts of individuals who are not residents of the country. Tax authorities, in turn, transmit received information to a relevant authority of the country that is assigned for the exchange.

According to the CRS standards, countries participating in the exchange have the right not to exchange data with a particular state if there is a reason to believe that confidentiality of information is not kept or that this information can be used not for investigation of tax offenses, but for other purposes.

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