Gibraltar ‘white listed’

Following the signing of tax information exchange agreements with Finland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar has been transferred onto the OECD’s so called ‘white list’.

The white list is a list of countries who have signed 12 or more tax information exchange agreements. The criteria were established by the G20 and OECD in April this year.

In a statement the Gibraltar Finance Centre, said: “In keeping with the locally established strategy, Gibraltar, like most other countries, and in order to avoid discrimination against our own Finance Centre, has waited for the establishment of “a level playing field” before actively seeking out partner countries with which to sign such agreements. This was achieved in March when Switzerland, Luxembourg and Austria, who as full member of the OECD had not yet themselves accepted the tax information exchange principle, did so.”

“Accordingly, in April 2009 the Government declared a 20 November target date to sign at least 12 agreements and pass to the white list. We are delighted to have achieved that in good time,” added the financial centre.

Gibraltar said it was committed to the underlying principles of sharing tax information. “Therefore, in addition to these 13 signed agreements we have already negotiated and initialled several more, which will be signed when the other countries complete their internal constitutional procedures for doing so.”

“Our offer to sign a TIEA with whatever country wants to sign one with us remains open,” said the department.

The Gibraltar Government is expected to pass a law to put these agreements into practice by the end of the year.