Jersey Effectively Implementing Tax Information Exchange

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

27 October 2011

Jersey Finance has welcomed the findings of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes which assessed how well Jersey had responded to the international standards on tax information exchange.

Jersey was described by the Peer Review Group as having "practices which to date have demonstrated a responsive and co-operative approach." It further indicated that the speed with which Jersey responded to requests was in marked contrast to the time taken by many other territories.

To date Jersey has responded to 84 requests for information exchange – 36 at the time of the review – and the Forum described Jersey’s response to requests as being "effective and expeditious to date."

Geoff Cook, the Chief Executive of Jersey Finance Limited, the promotional agency for the island's financial services industry, commented: "So often we hear detractors make misleading claims that Jersey is secretive and unco-operative and yet the truth based on hard evidence is very different. An independent, specially-formed global body set up by Organisation for Economic and Cooperation Development members, which is able to delve closely into our procedures and ask probing questions of our officials, shows clearly that Jersey is responsive and co-operative."

Jersey met the Group’s standards in six of the nine areas under review and the government has announced that changes are being made to ensure the island is fully compliant. While areas for improvement were recommended, Jersey noted that where assessors had noted gaps in Jersey's framework, they were not in areas that prevented Jersey from engaging in effective information exchange.

All members of the Global Forum are being reviewed in this way and Jersey was one of only two non-OECD jurisdictions to volunteer for the assessment process.

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