Switzerland Has Added You as a Friend

The OECD-driven tax landscape has changed so much over the last year. In a story which will likely fail to capture notice from anyone, Switzerland signed a bilateral tax agreement with Bangladesh!

That's right Bangladesh. Try finding Bangladesh on the map. No offense but all I know is that is traditionally one of the poorest nations in the world. Every year the UN sends millions in food and essentials in humanitarian efforts.

Is there even a Swiss bank operating in Bangladesh? How many Swiss subsidiaries are operating in Bangladesh? How many HNW Bangladeshians (if that is what you call their nationals) do you have on your client list? Hard to imagine any Swiss tax practitioners will spend more than a nano-second dreaming up some scheme to take advantage of this. Hands up if you would like to be the first in your organization to open up the Bangladeshi branch. I suspect NRIs wouldn't want to go there to do business either.

Clearly the Swiss are scraping the bottom of the barrel in signing up tax treaty partners. Has all this OECD-stuff become nothing more than a Facebook competition....where who has the most "friends" wins??