OECD welcomes flood of tax transparency agreements

A progress report issued by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) has claimed that almost 300 tax transparency agreements have been signed by jurisdictions since the April 2009 G20 summit in London. This called on governments and sub-national administrations worldwide to adopt the OECD’s standards on revealing and exchanging tax information. An OECD communiqué said:“New legislation in major financial centres such as Hong Kong and Singapore [will enable] them to implement the standards as well. Of the 40 plus offshore financial centres identified as tax havens in 2000 all but six now have one or more agreements that meet the standards.” These are Liberia, Nauru, Niue, Panama, Guatemala and the Philippines.