Finance ministers and tax chiefs from 51 countries signed an agreement on Wednesday to automatically swap tax information, which Germany's finance minister said heralded the end of tax evasion via secret bank accounts. "Let's make a joint contribution to more transparency and fairness in our globalised 21st century," Wolfgang Schaeuble told a taxation conference of about 100 countries coordinated by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The pledge from so many countries -- Schaeuble said there were 51 signatories from four continents, after one country joined at the last minute -- is the result of years of OECD efforts to facilitate tax authorities' access to bank data. OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria said the taxation deal should "help to recover the trust the public today has lost" during the global financial crisis and economic downturn. "Tax evasion is not just illegal, it is immoral," Britain's finance minister, George Osborne, told a news conference
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