The following comes from the blog of ‘Tony, The Prof’ in Jersey, and seems highly pertinent, following in the wake of news that despite much prior trumpeting that it would happen Jersey failed to sign a tax information exchange agreement with India last week when an official delegation from the island was in the country.
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Progress on Exchange of Information in the Caribbean – News – Bahamas Financial Services Board. The Bahamas want to celebrate: The Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development announced today that Anguilla, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Vincent and the Grenadines have become the 23rd, 24th and 25th jurisdictions to move into the category of
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Budget 2010: the Belize gambit | Richard Murphy | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk . Alistair Darling won a rousing cheer for announcing a crackdown on Lord Ashcroft’s tax haven. But we should read the small print. Or so I say over at the Guardian. Follow the link, above.

Developing nations asked to join tax exchange | UK | Reuters . The UK government said on Tuesday it had asked developing nations to swap information to crack down on tax avoidance, ahead of a financial crime conference on Wednesday. Treasury minister Stephen Timms wrote to 16 countries, including Jamaica, Cameroon, South Africa and Vietnam
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Attiya Waris of Tax Justice Network is addressing the OECD meeting. She says there are seven key words in tax: Transparency Accountability Responsibility True Fair Efficient Effective She says changes tax is changing. In Kenya indirect tax does not create tax awareness, and it can’t work because it is dependent on literacy. This breaks down
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Tax-Haven Crackdown ‚ÄòBig Success’ as OECD Begins Review Process – Bloomberg.com. As Bloomberg notes: Cracking down on tax havens has been “one of the big success stories” of the Group of 20’s efforts in the financial crisis, the OECD said, as the Group shifts from naming-and-shaming to ensuring compliance with tax standards. The Paris-based Organization
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I’m in Brussels talking about automatic information exchange today (and country-by-country reporting tomorrow). It’s interesting to hear someone (I don’t think I can or should name him) close to the OECD Global Forum review group on information exchange saying that they are well aware that places like Monaco are taking the Mickey when seeking to
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While we rail at MPs, the City gets away with murder | Nick Cohen | Comment is free | The Observer . Nick Cohen refers to yours truly in the Observer: A year ago, the world seemed willing to tackle the secrecy of the tax havens that hid so many of the bubble’s catastrophic deals.
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This from page 10 of the Foot report: It is anticipated that standards in this area will continue to rise and even those of the nine jurisdictions within the scope of this Review that have met or exceeded the current standard of 12 TIEAs should continue to enter further agreements with relevant countries. This imperative
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