OECD Removes Marshall Islands From Tax Haven Black List

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

08 August 2007

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has removed the Marshall Islands from its list of 'uncooperative tax havens', after the state made a commitment to implement a programme to improve transparency, and to establish effective exchange of information in tax matters.

As a result of this commitment, the Marshall Islands becomes the second country in the past month, following Liberia, to be removed from the OECD’s list of uncooperative tax havens. Only 3 countries remain on the OECD 'blacklist': Andorra, Liechtenstein and Monaco.

The Marshall Islands joins 34 other jurisdictions that have made similar commitments.

According to the OECD, its work in this area is designed to enable countries to enforce their tax laws fully and fairly, by ensuring that they can obtain from other countries relevant information when needed.

A recent report, “Tax Co-operation: Towards a Level Playing Field – 2006 Assessment by the Global Forum on Taxation”, shows that most countries have made - in the OECD's view - considerable progress in implementing transparency and exchange of information standards, although it notes that further progress is still needed in some countries.

Recommended