Sanders Renews Attack On OECD

by Amanda Banks, Tax-News.com, London

07 January 2003

Sir Ronald Sanders, High Commissioner to the United Kingdom for Antigua and Barbuda has launched another stinging attack on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Develoment (OECD), accusing the multilateral body of practicing 'a form of neo-colonialism' throughout its Harmful Tax Competition Initiative (HTCI).

In a recently released paper entitled 'The Fight Against Fiscal Colonialism: The OECD and Small Jurisdictions', Sir Ronald outlined developments since the 1998 publication of the OECD's 'harmful tax havens' list, and strongly questioned whether the level playing field concept, which was so central to the cooperation of many of the jurisdictions named on the list, ever actually existed.

The High Commissioner argued that the OECD, over the past four years, has attempted to dictate the tax systems of other nations for the benefit of its own member states, arguing that: 'Throughout this initiative, the OECD is seeking to curb the rights of sovereign small states and autonomous jurisdictions, defying the norms of international rules and practice.'

He also cited the powerful role played by the media - particularly in OECD member states - in effectively demonising the territories named on the 'blacklist', despite the fact that many Western countries have tax regimes which could be viewed as equally harmful under the criteria laid out by the organisation, and questioned the non-inclusion of certain prominent low tax jurisdictions.

'It is noteworthy, for instance, that Hong Kong was never named as a tax haven, yet by every criteria that the OECD established, Hong Kong should have been a prime target. Was Hong Kong's omission an indication that the OECD did not want to offend the Peoples Republic of China?' he observed.

The publication of this paper follows closely an angry letter sent to the OECD by Sir Ronald last month, following the announcement that certain members of the international organisation had been given until 2011 to comply with regulations on tax information exchange - seven years longer than the permitted period for non-members.

Recommended