Philippines taken off OECD tax haven list

(AFP) – 3 days ago
PARIS — The OECD on Tuesday took the Philippines off its list of tax havens, leaving just 11 "grey list" jurisdictions that have not implemented internationally accepted tax standards.
"The Philippines today moved up to the list of jurisdictions that have substantially implemented the internationally agreed tax standard," said the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The move came after the Asian country overturned domestic legal restrictions that prevented its tax authorities from obtaining and exchanging certain types of information, such as bank information, the OECD said in a statement.
The Philippines had previously been on the "grey list" of territories that had committed to internationally accepted tax standards but had not yet fully implemented them.
Now just 11 territories or countries remain on that list, including Uruguay, Panama, Liberia and a handful of island states in the Pacific.
There are no jurisdictions left on the OECD's list of places that have not committed to internationally agreed tax standards.
A forum set up to fight tax fraud and bank secrecy was to meet in Singapore on Wednesday to assess progress ahead of the Group of 20 (G20) summit.
More than 200 delegates to the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes will take part in two days of talks in Singapore, an Asian banking centre that has vowed to tackle cross-border tax cheats.

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