OECD Announces Meeting With Tax Havens In Barbados, Publishes Memorandum Of Understanding
The OECD has agreed
to meet the 35 countries it "named and shamed" as harmful
tax havens at a summit in Barbados in early 2001. The meeting,
set for January 8-9, is co-sponsored by the Commmonwealth Secretariat,
many of whose members were on the list of countries and territories
deemed to facilitate tax avoidance. Invitations to attend the
conference are being extended to the governments of both OECD
and Commonwealth countries, as well as to representatives of the
IMF, the World Bank, the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation
and relevant regional organisations. Barbados was one
of the unfortunate jurisdictions to find itself of the OECD's
now infamous list. However, its Prime Minister, Owen Arthur, offered
to host discussions between the Commonwealth Secretariat and the
OECD in the hope that some progress might be made towards getting
Barbados and a number of other offshore financial centres removed
from the list. He made the suggestion during his budget statement
last month. OECD sources said the meeting was intended to answer
charges from several of the blacklisted nations that the OECD
was being "imperial" in its manner of dealing with the
issue. A press release issued by the OECD said the objective of
the meeting will be to "consider early confidence building
measures, and develop a shared perspective on the way forward." Addressing the OECD’s
Council in Paris, the Chairman of the Committee on Fiscal Affairs,
Gabriel Makhlouf said: 'The conference in Barbados will provide
a valuable opportunity to continue the dialogue with jurisdictions
in the region, in order to develop genuine shared perspectives
on how to eliminate harmful tax practices.' He welcomed Owen Arthur's
statement following a meeting at the Commonwealth Secretariat
in London that "the war of words has ended" and said
this was also his view. As details of the
Barbados summit were revealed, the OECD also published a Framework
for a Collective Memorandum of Understanding on Eliminating Harmful
Tax Practices. The OECD said it was part of its drive to improve
co-operation with jurisdictions identified as tax havens and can
form a basis for the OECD to continue its dialogue with those
jurisdictions. It sets out the steps that the OECD is asking them
to take in order demonstrate "a commitment to transparency,
non-discrimination and effective co-operation." It has been
sent to all 35 jurisdictions included on the OECD list, along
with a letter, setting out the enhanced procedures proposed by
the OECD’s Committee on Fiscal Affairs to "meet the
procedural and political concerns expressed by a number of jurisdictions."
At the Commonwealth
Finance Ministers Meeting held in Malta in September 2000, ministers
mandated the Commonwealth Secretariat to facilitate high level
multilateral dialogue on the issues raised by harmful tax practices.
The OECD has said that the talks in Barbados are in line with
this mandate. The full text of
the Framework for a Collective Memorandum of Understanding on
Eliminating Harmful Tax Practices is available in Tax-News.com
Resources The full text of
the letter is available at http://www.oecd.org/media/MOUletter20nov.pdf
.
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