Miliband Comments 'Lack Credibility', Say Guernsey, IoM

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

20 January 2012

Guernsey and the Isle of Man have joined Jersey in denouncing as erroneous the comments of the leader of the opposition Labour Party in the UK, Ed Miliband, in which he called for the European Union to take action against territories such as the Crown Dependencies on tax transparency concerns.

Isle of Man Chief Minister Allan Bell has labelled the comments "ill-informed" and referred to the substantial weight of evidence which demonstrates the island's proactive approach on tax regulation issues, as well as its Crown Dependency peers.

Bell said: “The Isle of Man has a long established protocol with the UK for tax information exchange. In addition we have a network of Tax Information Exchange Agreements in place with our international partners. We also automatically exchange information with EU countries, making the Isle of Man one of the first non-EU countries to do this.”

Bell noted that the Isle of Man is on the OECD ‘white list’ of countries which have ‘substantially-implemented the internationally agreed tax standard'.

Bell also pointed to numerous international assessments that have found the Isle of Man to be at the forefront of standards of best practice in tax regulation. In a recent report to the G20, the OECD concluded that the Isle of Man is one of only eight reviewed jurisdictions found to have all elements of effective information exchange in place. This places the Isle of Man alongside Australia, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan and Norway.

In its review of adherence to international standards, the Financial Stability Board placed the Isle of Man in the highest category of co-operative jurisdictions, concluding that the island demonstrates sufficiently strong adherence to international standards.

Bell continued: “I am disappointed that the Isle of Man’s work in leading the field in international tax standards and in contributing to their ongoing development has not been recognised by the Leader of the Opposition, as it has been by others. It is not for any politician to dictate who should be on an OECD black list. It is for the OECD to make this decision based on a ‘cool headed’ evaluation of the facts. The Isle of Man is supportive of the UK government's crackdown on tax evasion and their approach to strengthening the UK’s anti-avoidance framework. We have a positive working relationship with our counterparts in the UK government, which makes these comments all the more surprising.”

Guernsey's Treasury and Resource Minister, Charles Parkinson echoed these sentiments, dismissing Miliband's statements as "political posturing" amid struggling opinion polls for the Labour party, in comments to the UK's state broadcaster, the BBC.

Miliband's comments also drew criticism in the UK, from Mark Field, UK Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster, who said: "Ed Miliband’s comments are behind the curve here and the evidence paints a very different picture. International bodies such as the OECD have repeatedly recognised the [islands'] record of compliance.”

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