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The purpose of the Agreement is to provide a standardized and efficient mechanism to facilitate the process of automatic exchange of information in accordance with the Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Information in Tax Matters jointly developed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the G20 countries. The introduction of this standard will give an opportunity to improve the tax legislation and the fight against tax evasion.

This was stated by the Deputy Head of the RA State Revenue Committee (SRC) Ashot Muradyan who introduced the draft law on Ratifying the Multilateral Agreement of Competent Authorities on Automatic Exchange of Information on Financial Accounts signed on 14 October 2014 at the NA regular sitting on September 13.

According to the key rapporteur, the legal basis of the Agreement is the multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, which was ratified by the Republic of Armenia in 2019.

According to him, the Republic of Armenia, on the basis of reciprocity, undertakes to ensure the automatic exchange of the information presented in Article 2 of the Agreement by the competent authorities, in the scheme of the unified reporting standard, with an expanding marking language with the agreement.

Accordingly, confidentiality rules and other safeguards will be applied to all information exchanged, including provisions limiting the use of information exchanged to the extent required to provide the necessary level of personal data protection.

According to the Deputy Head of the SRC, the secretariat of the coordinating body will be immediately informed about any violation of the obligation of confidentiality or non-fulfilment of guarantees and any sanction applied as a result and the actions taken to eliminate the consequences, etc.

The co-rapporteur, the Deputy Chair of the NA Standing Committee on Economic Affairs Babken Tunyan presented the endorsement of the Head Committee and called on his colleagues to vote for it.

The Parliament adopted the draft law.

During the sitting, at the suggestion of RA NA President Alen Simonyan, the parliamentarians honored the memory of the casualties who died as a result of the Azerbaijani attack on the Republic of Armenia a year ago with a minute of silence.