During its meeting on 20 September 2019, the Federal Council decided to immediately suspend the automatic exchange of financial account information (AEOI) with Bulgaria due to a problem with the country’s data security. The systems and databases of Swiss tax administrations and financial institutions are not affected by this incident.

The first automatic exchange on a reciprocal basis between Switzerland and Bulgaria took place in 2018 within the framework of the bilateral agreement between Switzerland and the European Union (EU). Following a data security incident affecting the Bulgarian National Revenue Agency in July 2019, the Agency confirmed to the Swiss authorities that individuals with tax residence in Switzerland holding financial accounts in Bulgaria and individuals with tax residence in Bulgaria with financial accounts in Switzerland were affected by the disruption.In accordance with the Federal Act on the International Automatic Exchange of Information on Tax Matters (AEIA), the Federal Council had to formally approve the suspension of the exchange of data with Bulgaria. The Federal Tax Administration (FTA) will therefore not provide the Bulgarian tax authorities with 2018 financial account data supplied to it by the Swiss financial institutions at the end of September 2019.Bulgaria will only receive information from its AEOI partners again once the data security problem has been resolved and the corrective measures taken have been validated by the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (Global Forum).

Bulgarian National Revenue AgencySORUCE: www.sif.admin.ch