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BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - THE European Commission will visit Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong to help crack down on tax avoidance in the European Union, a Commission source said on Monday.
The EU executive is reviewing the bloc's 2005 rules on savings tax, seen by critics as full of loopholes, too narrow in scope and encouraging the rich to squirrel away cash offshore.
EU states have agreed the Commission should ask the Asian country and two territories to swap tax information on EU citizens but it faces a tough mission.
EU Tax Commissioner Laszlo Kovacs visits Hong Kong this month while senior Commission officials go to Macau and Singapore for exploratory talks.
'Singapore says they don't see how they can cooperate, but there is still room for explaining what we want,' the Commission source said.
Hong Kong and Macau were more hopeful as both have taken part in global forums on exchanging tax information.
'The purpose of the visits is to see what that implies,' the source added.
No formal negotiations have been opened with any of the three.
The review of the EU savings tax rules will be finalised by the year-end for member states to consider how far they are willing to change a measure that took years of negotiations to adopt.
Trusts and foundations were exempt from the scope and the amounts raised by the tax so far have been modest, about 250 million euros (S$523.8 million), compared to the sums EU citizens have put away outside their home state.
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