Critics Say Tax Haven Crackdown Falls Short - Forbes.com.

[T]here are also an increasing number of experts who argue the OECD's process, the main vehicle to enact change so far, falls considerably short of a serious attack on the global financial system's many black holes.

"The OECD program is incredibly ineffective," says John Christensen, a British economist who is the director of the Tax Justice Network's International Secretariat, a lobbying group, supported by charities like Oxfam and Christian Aid, that is agitating to close tax loopholes and reform bank and trust "secrecy" rules around the globe.

The core problem? The OECD's prescribed information exchanges are based on a "by request" process that involves submitting a country's evidence of a citizen's tax evasion to the tax haven where the evader is suspected of keeping his bank accounts.

"The evidence request requirements are very high. You have to have a smoking gun. And then there is tremendous discretion within the tax haven's courts as to whether they will comply," says Christensen.

In amongst all the OECD hype this morning this is the reality.