Monaco Submits To OECD Guidelines

by Lorys Charalambous, Tax-News.com, Cyprus

19 March 2009

Following negotiations with the OECD, Monaco has agreed to increase its transparency with foreign tax authorities in the hope that the OECD will remove it from its list of uncooperative jurisdictions, revealed Monaco in a recent statement.

In its statement Monaco said that it would follow ‘recent evolutions in the area of bank secrecy and information exchange’ undertaken by jurisdictions such as Switzerland, Luxembourg and Austria and conform to standards laid down by the OECD.

The move by Monaco means that all previously blacklisted territories have agreed to conform to OECD standards on information exchange, including Liechtenstein and Andorra, last week.

OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria has welcomed the recent decisions by several jurisdictions. In his statement he opined: “Moves by major financial centres to improve transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes mark a significant step forward in international tax cooperation and a welcome result of more than twelve years of OECD work reinforced by the imminence of the G-20 summit next month."

“These announcements mark a fundamental change and an important moment in the history of international tax cooperation,” Gurria said. “At a time when governments around the world need to maximize tax revenues in order to address the global economic crisis, this is an extremely important breakthrough.”

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