Finance minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, and her French counterpart, Michel Sapin, signed this part of the agreement during his visit to Bern last week.
This brings the previous double taxation agreement between the countries into line with Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development standards. It was provisionally signed off on by Sapin’s predecessor, Pierre Moscovici, in March.
The rider is in relation to what the agreement calls “group requests”, which are demands for information about classes of accountholders whose names are not known to the enquiring authority, covering such details as the name of the bank and the particular way in which clients were able to avoid paying tax.
To read about how the US Internal Revenue is targeting Swiss bank clients with 50% penalty for wilful non-disclosure, click here.
