One jurisdiction left on the OECD black list
Trinidad and Tobago, a small group of islands in the Caribbean, remains the only jurisdiction on the OECD’s blacklist, which «does not respect the international standards of financial transparency and does nothing to progress in this direction» (i. e. remains a Non-Compliant Jurisdiction).
A new OECD report on the subject was published on June 28, 2017. In addition to the blacklist, the report also features a ’grey list’, which includes countries partially implementing the standards (Partially Compliant Jurisdictions). This year the grey list includes the Marshall Islands, formerly black listed. All other offshore jurisdictions, previously included in the OECD black and grey lists, have progressively joined the mechanisms for international exchange of information under the public pressure by introducing the necessary amendments to their home legislative systems.
OECD experts gave a positive appraisal to these serious efforts and moved a number of jurisdictions to the ’respectable’ category of Largely Compliant Jurisdictions. In 2017 the following states were promoted: Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Vanuatu, Guatemala, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Lebanon, Micronesia, Nauru, the United Arab Emirates, Panama and Samoa.
To avoid getting grey- or black listed, the jurisdiction should comply with a number of standards, including:
- Effective response to requests for information
- Intention to join the mechanism for automatic exchange of tax information
According to the OECD experts, the vast majority of the offshore companies showed significant progress in complying with the international standards of financial transparency within the last couple of years. At the same time, the only country remaining in the current version of the black list (Trinidad and Tobago) is described as «a jurisdiction without a significant financial sector in the economy, and therefore it does not pose a particular risk.»
