OECD Issues New Peer Reviews

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

05 April 2012

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, publishing eleven new peer reviews, has said that the vast majority of territories which have been subject to critical assessments have implemented satisfactory legislative regimes that can facilitate the exchange of information on request.

New reports in respect of Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Guatemala, Malta, Mexico, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Slovakia evaluate whether their national laws allow transparency and international exchange of tax information (as part of Phase 1 of the process). The review of Korea also looked at the effectiveness of Korea’s exchange of information in practice (Phase 1 plus Phase 2). These reports bring the number of peer review reports that have been concluded since March 2010 to 70.

The Global Forum has also issued three supplementary reports, in respect of Barbados, Bermuda and Qatar, which assess whether these jurisdictions have acted upon the Forum’s recommendations to improve agreements and legislation. All three jurisdictions’ compliance with the international standards have since progressed significantly, the OECD reported, and Phase 2 reviews in respect of Bermuda and Qatar will take place in the second half of 2012, with Barbados's Phase 2 review scheduled for the first half of 2013.

The in-depth reviews identify deficiencies and make recommendations on how the jurisdictions should address concerns about their frameworks for exchanging tax information on request. The OECD reported that the legal and regulatory frameworks in place in many territories are improving rapidly. Previously, just 11 jurisdictions were not able to move to the second phase in the review process.

Reports published in respect of Costa Rica and Guatemala found that they had not implemented legislative frameworks or concluded tax information exchange agreements necessary to progress to a Phase 2 assessment, with the reports finding 'serious deficiencies' in their frameworks.

A comprehensive report in our Intelligence Report series, examining in depth the situation of offshore transparency and secrecy in a number of the most prominent jurisdictions, is available in the Lowtax Library at http://www.lowtaxlibrary.com/asp/subs_reports.asp and a description of the report can be seen at http://www.lowtaxlibrary.com/asp/description_report2.asp

TAGS: money-laundering | compliance | tax | offshore confidentiality | tax information exchange agreement (TIEA) | tax compliance | Chile | Malta | Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | tax avoidance | fiscal policy | law | banking | international financial centres (IFC) | Bermuda | Mexico | Qatar | offshore | agreements | legislation | banking secrecy | Brazil | Costa Rica | Cyprus | Czech Republic | Guatemala | standards | mutual assistance agreement | Barbados