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Basel - Foreigners with Swiss bank accounts will find it more difficult to hide money after the Swiss parliament's upper house on Wednesday approved automatic bank data exchange with other countries.
The new rule, which was previously adopted by the lower house, brings Switzerland in line with the standards of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and of the G20 group of major economies.
Parliament had confirmed the "funeral of tax evasion secrecy," social democratic legislator Roberto Zanetti said, speaking on behalf of the upper house.
Switzerland has been providing information about potential tax evaders only upon request by foreign authorities.
In the future, such information will be provided to countries with which Switzerland has relevant bilateral agreements.
Such deals have been closed with the European Union and Australia so far.
The agreement with the EU was signed in May and will come into force in 2018.
"It is another blow against tax evaders, and another leap towards fairer taxation in Europe," European Economic and Financial Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said at the time.
The client data to be exchanged with EU countries includes names, birthdays, addresses, tax identification numbers, account balances and transactions.
