The Isle of Man has restated its support for the development of a single global standard for the automatic exchange of information between tax authorities.
The Island is one of more than 30 countries who have signed up to a joint statement backing the move and calling on others to make the same commitment.
The statement confirms that the countries have joined a pilot project for future multilateral tax information exchange, based on the FATCA model, first launched in April this year by the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
It adds: ‘In doing so we have recognised that only those financial centres which embrace the new tax transparency and work in close co-operation to tackle cross-border evasion will prosper in future.
‘We call on other countries and jurisdictions to commit to join this initiative at the earliest opportunity with the aim of rapidly creating a truly global system of automatic information exchange and leaving no hiding places for tax evasion’.
Chief Minister Allan Bell MHK said that signing the joint statement was a logical step for the Isle of Man given its previous expressions of support for a global standard and of its intention to engage with the multilateral pilot.
Mr Bell commented: ‘As the joint statement says, tax evasion is a global problem requiring a global solution. The Isle of Man welcomes the movement towards a single global standard, which will lead to greater tax transparency while minimising compliance costs for business and government.’
The joint statement can be found on the Global Forum website at: http://www.oecd.org/tax/transparency/Joint%20Statement.pdf
