Tax Co Operation 2009 PDF Download

This edition has heightened significance given today's financial and economic environment. Recent events have underscored the pressing need for countries to cooperate to ensure the full and proper application of their domestic tax laws in a world where taxpayers' financial transactions take on an increasingly international flavour. International banking has become commonplace and it is no longer extraordinary for taxpayers to reside in one country, hold assets in another and have them managed from a third location. The proliferation of such financial relationships is a natural result of globalisation, and may be motivated by tax concerns, commercial pressures or a variety of other considerations. But regardless of why taxpayers situate their assets beyond the boundaries of their own residence country, the result is that tax administrations around the world face more and greater challenges to the proper enforcement of their tax laws than ever before. To meet these challenges, tax authorities must increasingly rely on international co-operation based on the implementation of international standards of transparency and effective exchange of information. 1.The heightened political attention to the issues of transparency and exchange of information has led to a number of significant positive developments among financial centres since last year's report: 2.All OECD countries now accept Article 26 (Exchange of Information) of the OECD Model Tax Convention, as updated in 2005, following the withdrawal in March 2009 by Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland of their reservations to Article 26. These four countries are actively negotiating updates to their treaty networks. Belgium and Luxembourg have already signed at least 12 agreements that meet the standard and Switzerland has initialled 12 with OECD countries. 3.Hong Kong, China and Macao, China endorsed the standards at the 2005 Global Forum meeting in Melbourne and have now put forward legislation to enable them to implement the standards. 4.Singapore endorsed the standards on 10 February 2009 and proposed relevant legislation in June 2009 intended to comply with the internationally agreed tax standard. 5.More than 75 tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs) based on the Global Forum's model have been signed since the beginning of 2008. 6.Andorra, Liechtenstein and Monaco - identified by the OECD in 2002 as uncooperative tax havens - have endorsed the OECD standards and indicated their willingness to change their domestic legislation and to enter into agreements for the exchange of information for tax purposes. 7.Niue, which was identified as a tax haven by the OECD in 2000, reports that it has now eliminated its offshore sector and dissolved all of its international business companies, trusts, partnerships or other offshore entities. 8.Brunei, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Malaysia, the Philippines and Uruguay have all endorsed the OECD's standards of transparency and exchange of information and agreed to implement them.