VATICAN CITY
swissinfo
APR 1, 2015
(Bloomberg) — The Vatican and Italy signed a tax accord on Wednesday that includes an exchange of financial information as part of Pope Francis’s drive for transparency and preventing money-laundering.
The agreement, signed by Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states, and Pier Carlo Padoan, Italy’s economy minister, follows guidelines from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Vatican said in a statement. It ensures exchange of information on taxable sums since January 1, 2009.
The agreement will apply to Italian individuals, institutions and companies with accounts at Vatican financial bodies. It comes after similar accords by the Italian Treasury with Switzerland, Lichtenstein and the Principality of Monaco as Prime Minister Matteo Renzi seeks to boost revenue from fighting tax evasion.
Under pressure from Italian investigators, the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), known as the Vatican Bank, has started reviewing its account holders amid money-laundering probes. More than 2,000 accounts have so far been blocked. The IOR, set up in 1942, oversees about 6 billion euros ($6.45 billion) of customer assets.
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