The Association of Banks (ABL) in Lebanon recently indicated in a letter addressed to the care-taker Minister of Finance Dr. Youssef Khalil that Article No. 23 of Law No.44 (Law on Tax Procedures) stipulates that the mechanism to request from banks data governed by the banking secrecy law must be set by a decree issued by the Council of Ministers, which is yet to happen. The ABL also pointed out in the same vein, that in the absence of such a decree, banks would be subject to litigation in case they deliver data protected by the banking secrecy law. The aforementioned letter comes in reference to the Minister’s decision number 647/1 (in application of article 93 of law number 324) requesting commercial banks working in Lebanon to furnish the tax authorities (by July 4) with relevant information on individuals/companies who benefited from Sayrafa operations along with the number and value of these transactions. It is worth highlighting that the Ministry of Finance is requesting the aforementioned data in order to subject people/institutions who made more than $15,000 in Sayrafa transactions volume to a 17% tax, in case they did not report said transactions in their corporate tax declarations.