Paris, 19/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - The OECD's Council adopted a report last week into damaging fiscal practices, outlining the pledges that it wants tax havens to make and putting off until February 2002 the deadline for compiling a list of the tax havens that refuse to cooperate.
In June 2000, the OECD 1) identified 47 potentially damaging preferential tax systems in OECD states; 2) listed 35 legal systems that meet the criteria for "tax havens"; 3) put forward a procedure whereby tax havens would pledge to end their damaging practices; 4) outlined ways in which non-OECD countries could take part; and 5) outlined some defensive measures. Since then, eleven off-shore tax havens have pledged to put an end to preferential practices (Aruba, Bahrain, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Isle of Man, Malta, Mauritius, Dutch Antilles, San Marino and the Seychelles).
The President of the OECD Fiscal Affairs Committee, Gabriel Makhlouf, said that at its 14 November meeting, the OECD Council decided to amend various parts of its programme in order to meet various concerns expressed by the countries in question. The commitments required from tax havens will now only cover transparency and the exchange of information; defensive measures will not apply to uncooperative tax havens before they are applied in OECD member countries (which have the sovereign right to decide for themselves whether to apply the measures); the list of uncooperative tax havens that might be liable for sanctions will not be drawn up until February 2002 (rather than July 2001 as originally scheduled); and the states that have made pledges will have twelve (rather than six) months to draw up a programme for applying the measures.