OECD To Examine Implications Of EU Savings Tax

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

16 October 2003

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) met this week to discuss the possible implications of the European Union's Savings Tax Directive, and of the opposition of countries such as Switzerland and Luxembourg to plans for a common definition of tax fraud.

According to a Reuters report, representatives from more than 40 countries attended this week's closed door meeting in Ottowa. Speaking to the news service on condition of anonymity, an OECD official explained that:

"One of the objectives is to reconfirm on the side of the countries that are participating...that they are committed to a level playing field."

Speaking with regard to the reluctance of Switzerland, Luxembourg, Austria, and Belgium to agree to a December 2005 deadline for improving access to bank information in order to verify EU residents' tax liabilities, he observed that:

"The question the agency has is whether the reluctance of those four countries to adopt the pace the others want, is that going to trigger a change in people's belief in the standard?"

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