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M. Continuo

Germany says five big EU states to cooperate more on fighting tax evasion


    BERLIN (Reuters) - The European Union's five largest economies have agreed to deepen their cooperation on fighting tax evasion and expect other member states to join their initiative, the German finance ministry said on Tuesday.

    The finance ministers of Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Spain (G5) have written a joint letter to the European Commission explaining their pilot project, the ministry said. It envisages as a first step the automatic exchange of information between the signatory countries concerning investment income.

    "The finance ministers of the G5 express in their letter the expectation that other EU member states will join in order to set a new standard within the EU on the increased automatic exchange of information," the ministry statement said.

    (Reporting by Gareth Jones, editing by Noah Barkin)