OECD claims success with tax haven crackdown

| 26/01/2010

(Bloomberg): Cracking down on tax havens has been “one of the big success stories” of the Group of 20’s efforts in the financial crisis, the OECD said, as the Group shifts from naming-and-shaming to ensuring compliance with tax standards. The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said195 tax-information exchange agreements were signed last year as countries faced fresh scrutiny from the G- 20, up from 23 in 2008. Nineteen countries that had been branded as not sufficiently meeting international standards were removed from that category on the OECD’s so-called gray list. Jeffrey Owens, director of the OECD’s Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, said significant progress had been named and denied it was just a numbers game.

Go to article  

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Category: Business

About the Author ()

Comments (2)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. OECD, They are driving all poor people to their graves,  we all need to pray for these ugly people, and to think that our mother country would allow their overseas territories, especially what they have done to Cayman, happen. The Europeon Union is like a cobra, strangling everything around them, while they slither around in their own muck. The OECD is ruining all nations, worse than the U N.

    Cover ups,cover ups.

  2. Anonymous says:

    This is just a numbers game where the winner is the one who has signed ‘the most tax information exchange agreements’. How does this legal fiction generate tax revenue for the OECD countries? It doesn’t!!  In fact, it only burdens financial centres which are competing with OECD countries which higher operating and compliance costs thus makes them less competitive.

    Has being off the OECD’s ‘grey’ list helped Cayman in any way?  Given the number of recent job losses, lay-off in our local law firms and resulting properties available for rent in the papers, it would not appear so.  You may be interested to know that the Bahamas is still on the OECD’s ‘grey’ list. (see http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/50/0/43606256.pdf) Given that Cayman is losing business to the Bahamas, being off the OECD’s ‘grey’ list might have done more harm than good.