Financial Transparency Coalition

PARIS-In April 2009, the G20 called for action “to make it easier for developing countries to secure the benefits of the new cooperative tax environment, including a multilateral approach for the exchange of information.” In response, the OECD and the Council of Europe developed a Protocol amending the multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters to bring it in line with the international standard on exchange of information for tax purposes and to open it up to countries that are neither members of the OECD nor of the Council of Europe.

Today, Singapore signed its 12th Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA), and thus the jurisdiction is added to the OECD white list. Well that takes care of it! No longer will Singapore be a place to hide money (read sarcasm). Okay, I'm being harsh; to be fair, Singapore knows that it's not fixed yet and will thus turn itself into a fully tax-compliant, transparent jurisdiction by today signing another TIEA with the financial powerhouse of Brunei (read more sarcasm). In reality, Singapore - ranked 8th most secretive in the Financial Secrecy Index - still is and will...

Global Financial Integrity has just released a statement highlighting the good and bad aspects of the new Swiss-US tax treaty that was released this week. While the treaty takes a major step forward from the OECD model by explicitly stating that domestic laws do not trump the treaty, it fails to address the problems posed by exchange of tax information upon request. Check out GFI's full statement below:

Information Exchange Shortcomings in U.S.-Swiss Tax Agreement

New protocol signed Wednesday does little to enhance U.S. ability to...