In the modern world, information is one of the most valuable assets of any business. The success of any commercial enterprise depends, ultimately, on how timely the information was received, how well it was, and what decision was taken in this regard. That’s why all businessmen understand very well that the information space needs protection and protection against any encroachment. The information field becomes a real field of battles between competing organizations, and, often, between the state and the business structure.

The line separating confidential business information from information that can be demanded and demanded by government agencies is very delicate. In this regard, the issues of timely and accurate disclosure of information are relevant both for the commercial environment and for the government.

In the context of this issue, the position of OECD is interesting, in March 2018 OECD issued new model information disclosure rules, according to which lawyers, accountants, financial advisers, banks and other service providers should inform the tax authorities of any schemes they apply to their clients to avoid reporting in accordance with the OECD / G20 General Reporting Standard (CRS) or to discourage the identification of beneficial owners of legal entities or trusts.

Since the reporting and automatic exchange of offshore financial accounts in accordance with CRS becomes a reality in more than 100 jurisdictions this year, many taxpayers who had undeclared offshore financial assets recently were able to provide relevant information to their tax authorities, which has already led to more than 85 billion additional tax revenues.

At the same time there are still entrepreneurs who, often with the help of consultants and financial intermediaries, continue to try to hide their offshore assets. The new rules, adopted in the spring of 2018, are precisely aimed at such persons and their advisers, because they introduce an obligation for a wide range of intermediaries to disclose schemes for circumventing CRS reporting to tax authorities. The new rules also require reporting on structures that hide the beneficial owners of offshore assets, companies and trusts.

Mandatory disclosure rules will become a powerful tool for identifying taxpayers who continue to waive their obligations to declare their assets and revenues to their tax authorities. These model disclosure rules are part of a broader OECD strategy to monitor market trends. As part of this work, OECD also considers cases of other abuses of the right to ensure the confidentiality of commercial information.

Thus, for successful business it is necessary to ensure the maximum balance between the preservation of commercially important information and the disclosure of data that guarantee the proper performance of the company’s tax obligations.