The EC (European Commission) has published its draft legislation compelling financial service providers or intermediaries to disclose any international tax planning schemes they have encouraged, enabled or assisted in any way.

The OECDs global tax transparency initiative was launched last year in April 2016, with the purpose of encouraging every jurisdiction across the world to commit to implementation of a CRS (Common Reporting Standard) for automatic exchange of information by 2018, and to sign the Multilateral Convention on the exchanging of tax data.

A formal enquiry into the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca has been launched by the European Parliament’s Committee, which found gaps in beneficial ownership transparency for trusts and fiduciaries and didn’t meet the EU standard.

The 2017 G20 leaders’ summit took place in Hamburg last week where the European Commission Council and leaders discussed the priorities and primary projects for the upcoming summit. EC President Jean-Claude Juncker has stated that advancing the global combat against tax evasion is top of the list.