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Tax Havens Are Meeting Minimal Requirements to Get Off OECD ‘Gray List’
By Colby Adams
printMany tax havens have done the bare minimum to remove themselves from an intergovernmental group's list of regulatory-lax jurisdictions, at times only signing tax treaties with other bank secrecy countries. To date, 17 jurisdictions have successfully lobbied to be removed from a so-called "gray list" of tax havens maintained by the intergovernmental Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The Paris-based organization published the list of countries with lax tax regulations in April, naming 38 jurisdictions at the time. To be removed from the list, nations must sign specialized tax treaties, called Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEA), with at least...
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Financial institutions should expect no leniency from their national regulators if they fail to comply with an intergovernmental agreement to stamp out tax evasion, according to an official heading the initiative.
With new international data-exchange agreements in place, the United Kingdom will soon have greater access than ever to information on tax dodgers with offshore accounts, according to the nation's Financial Secretary to the Treasury David Gauke.
Representatives from 51 jurisdictions Wednesday formalized their commitment to automatically exchange data starting in 2017 and 2018 as part of a global effort to limit tax evasion.
As European countries continue to fold to international pressure to increase their financial transparency, Austria's defense of bank secrecy may be a selling point to money launderers, say compliance experts.
Two of the world's most influential intergovernmental groups will more heavily weigh each other's anti-money laundering and anti-tax crime standards in future evaluations, a former official said.
An expected agreement between the United Kingdom and Switzerland to tax half of the income of Britons keeping undeclared assets in Swiss bank accounts is a significant step backward in the fight against bank secrecy, say tax reform advocates.
Advocacy groups and developing countries are lobbying the United Nations to bolster its role in fighting tax crimes following disappointments with the efforts of an intergovernmental group representing wealthy nations.
U.S. investigators are increasingly relying on suspicious activity reports filed by depository institutions in their efforts to find tax evaders who hide their assets in foreign bank accounts.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Council of Europe agreed Tuesday to an updated tax data sharing agreement signed by 14 countries, including the United States.
An influential international anti-money laundering group may request that its members pass legislation tying tax evasion to money laundering as part of an effort to to pierce Swiss bank secrecy.
The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on a Senate-approved bill that would pressure foreign financial institutions to disclose their U.S. clients and extend government subpoena powers of financial records.
France's decision to shut down French banks in jurisdictions on a European Union tax haven blacklist will likely be mirrored by other countries, according to tax analysts.
It is an exciting time for IRS investigators who are now able to examine the UBS AG accounts of over 4,500 U.S. citizens suspected of hiding assets offshore, according to John Everett, a licensed criminal investigator and certified fraud examiner based in Agoura Hills, California.
As many as a dozen countries are expected to press UBS AG for information on tax evaders following the bank's settlement last week with the United States, say tax analysts.
Switzerland's largest bank agreed Wednesday to release details to the United States on 4,450 accounts held by U.S. taxpayers suspected of failing to report a total of $18 billion in revenue, the parties said.
The United States and UBS AG said Wednesday that they had reached an agreement over whether U.S. investigators could access data on the bank's tax evading American clients.
Plans by the Group of 20 to put an end to tax haven abuse could take up to ten years to implement, and will face political challenges, say international tax experts.
Five bank secrecy jurisdictions have acquiesced since Thursday to international calls for them to loosen privacy rules that allow tax evaders to hide their assets from governments, according to tax consultants and media reports.
OECD official Jeffrey Owens spoke with reporter Brian Monroe about why tax evasion has grown in importance, and how the recent fine against Swiss bank UBS has been a wakeup call for some banks.
Switzerland's largest bank will pay $780 million to the United States for helping 17,000 U.S. citizens evade paying taxes on offshore revenue, the U.S. Justice Department said Wednesday.