Australia Supports OECD Offshore Crackdown

by Mary Swire, Tax-News.com, Hong Kong

23 October 2008

The Australian Government has endorsed the strong action taken by 17 countries at the Finance Ministers meeting in Paris on Tuesday regarding financial transparency and exchange of information, convened by France and Germany.

Australia was one of the few non-European OECD members who were invited to the Finance Ministers meeting.

"Australia is at the forefront of global action on enhancing tax transparency and information exchange," Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen said.

"It is important that Australia is involved with these global efforts, because ultimately, these actions are vital in ensuring the integrity of our tax base," he added.

Australia's involvement at the Paris meeting was recognition of the country's long-standing support of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Harmful Tax Practices Initiative (HTPI), which aims to promote international cooperation to combat tax evasion.

"The Australian Government endorses the principles outlined in the meeting communiqué, particularly the move to greater coordinated defensive measures," Bowen added, continuing:

"We are concerned that some OECD countries have failed to adopt the OECD principles on transparency and information exchange. We also support the meeting's call for the OECD to draw up lists of countries that meet and those who do not meet the OECD standards on tax transparency and information exchange.

"The Rudd Government's commitment to tax-related defensive measures is reflected in the election and budget announcement that the benefits of the reduced withholding tax rates on certain distributions from managed funds to non residents would be limited only to those countries with effective exchange of information arrangements."

Bowen concluded: "This meeting is a timely reminder to tax havens that there is a growing appetite for further coordinated global action against tax and financial secrecy."

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