1 The interested tax authorities shall address their request for international administrative assistance to the FTA.
2 The FTA shall examine the request and decide whether the requirements under the administrative assistance provisions in the applicable agreement are met. If the requirements are not met, the FTA shall notify the requesting authority of this in writing, and give it the opportunity to supplement its request in writing.
3 The FTA shall transmit the request to the competent foreign authority and monitor the administrative assistance procedure until its conclusion.
4 Decisions on Swiss requests for international administrative assistance may not be challenged by way of appeal.
5 The FTA shall transmit the information received from abroad to the interested tax authorities and at the same time notify them of the restrictions on the use of the transmitted information and of the confidentiality obligation under the administrative assistance provisions of the applicable agreement.
5bis The FTA shall examine whether the information received from abroad is of interest to other Swiss authorities, and shall forward the information to these authorities provided this is permitted under the applicable convention and provided for by Swiss law. If required, it shall obtain the consent of the competent authority in the requested state.44
6 Administrative assistance concerning bank information may be requested only if such information could be obtained under Swiss law.
7 Paragraph 6 does not apply to states from which Switzerland may receive information without prior request.45