Turkey has started to exchange information on the financial accounts of Turkish citizens living in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria under a deal signed several years ago, Turkish media reported on Thursday.
Turkey signed the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information on April 21, 2017 in Paris.
Although it was supposed to report on the financial accounts of Turkish expatriates living in the countries that are party to the agreement in 2018, Turkey had failed to comply until this year.
Turkish authorities have recently begun the transfer of financial information such as income and revenues from deposits, investment accounts and insurance policies Turkish expatriates have in Turkey for 2019 and 2020 to authorities in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria under the agreement.
Turkey’s failure to share this information before was perceived as an effort to prevent the income and assets of Turkish expatriates from being disclosed to the countries having a considerable population of Turkish citizens such as Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria.
Cevdet Koçaş, an international taxation expert who works as a financial consultant, stated that the start of the automatic transfer of financial information will spell trouble for Turkish citizens in Germany who failed to report their income in Turkey to German authorities as well as for those who live Turkey but failed to report their revenue in Germany to Turkish authorities.
Under German law tax evasion is punishable by a fine or a prison sentence of up to five years, and in the case of aggravating factors can be punished with a sentence of six to 10 years in prison.