A Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) is an agreement between countries to exchange and provide information, upon request, related to tax, civil, or criminal matters and investigations.
For example, if the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) was investigating a U.S. citizen for possible tax evasion and the individual had bank accounts in the Cayman Islands, the DOJ could submit a TIEA request under the agreement to have the Cayman government provide available information.
The United States and the Cayman Islands signed a TIEA Agreement on November 27, 2001, which was superseded by a new agreement dated November 29, 2013.
With the introduction of the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) created a model TIEA, which automatically exchanges information between participating jurisdictions.
The agreement requires financial institutions to report information on their account holders.