On January 20, 2016, the Large Business and International (LB&I) Division released a Practice Unit entitled Overview of Exchange Information Programs and Types of EOI Exchanges, defining and describing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Exchange of Information (EOI) programs. These EOI Practice Units specify what types of exchanges are covered by EOI programs and what types of information the IRS can seek through each type of EOI exchange.
The IRS breaks down the avenues for international information exchange into several categories:
- Specific Requests involve requests for information pertaining to a specific taxpayer under examination or investigation for a specific period.
- Spontaneous Exchanges involve the transmission of taxpayer information by one member of an EOI agreement that is deemed potentially of interest to a foreign partner even though no specific requests have been initiated by the foreign partner.
- Automatic Exchanges involve the transmission of taxpayer information that foreign partners have agreed to exchange on a regular and systematic basis without individualized specific requests. The most common example includes information relating to dividends, interest, rents, royalties, salaries and annuities earned in one partner country by residents of the other partner country.
- Industry-Wide Exchanges involve the sharing of trends, policies and operating practices in a particular industry or economic sector and do not implicate specific taxpayer information.
- The Simultaneous Examination Program coordinates strategies and the development of technical issues between the United States and a foreign partner if it is determined a common interest exists between the respective taxing authorities. These discussions are intended to facilitate the exchange of relevant taxpayer information with the foreign partner in furtherance of the separate independent examinations of a taxpayer by each jurisdiction.
- Joint Audits take place when the United States and one or more of its foreign partners collaborate to conduct a single examination of a taxpayer or a related taxpayer within their jurisdictions.
- The Simultaneous Criminal Investigation Program operates through the EOI provisions of bilateral tax agreements and fosters the coordination of separate criminal investigations conducted concurrently by the United States and the foreign partner.
- The Mutual Legal Assistance Program relates to an agreement that authorizes a partner country to secure evidence for use by the requesting country in criminal judicial proceedings of the taxpayer.
- The Mutual Collection Assistance Request Program is intended to utilize the collection assistance provisions of tax treaties, enabling one partner state to collect taxes covered by the treaty on behalf of the other contracting state. These collection provisions appear in a limited number of current United States treaties.
The Practice Units provide a short general overview of each method and—of particular usefulness—describe what government office or department is responsible for executing requests in each category. Thus, the Practice Units may be a good “first line of defense” for information-gathering when you believe the IRS is pursuing or has received an international EOI request related to your client.
In future posts, we will discuss how these tools are utilized in practice, including how the IRS handles foreign-initiated Specific Requests.
