COMMONWEALTH STATES URGE OECD TO DELAY TAX HAVEN DEADLINE

Agence France Press, 7 June 2001

A group of 13 Commonwealth countries have called on the OECD to push back its July 31 deadline for suspected tax havens to clarify their fiscal systems or face sanctions.

The group, known as the International Tax and Investment Organisation (ITIO), told the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development on Wednesday that the OECD had not provided a precise definition of tax haven, and other details.

The OECD published in June 2000 a list of 35 countries, including many Commonwealth members, suspected of encouraging tax evasion, and called on them to collaborate in a global campaign against practices such as money laundering.

But the ITIO claimed that its requests seeking to clarify fundamental points with the OECD had gone unanswered, and sought assurance that the Commonwealth states would not be held to stricter standards than OECD members themselves.

Several of the territories implicated by the OECD as tax havens are small islands without natural resources whose economies are based in large part on financial services.


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