Westminster blog

Details are emerging of a deal on tax havens. The G20 has agreed that the OECD will publish a list imminently, which will have three categories.

The first will be for those territories that have already concluded their tax information sharing agreements (this includes Jersey and some other UK dependencies.

The second will include countries including Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg and Austria, which have committed to better information exchange but have not yet agreed all the agreements.

The third black list will be used to name and shame authorities that have not even committed to the information sharing agreements.

It seems that this has satisfied any concerns the Chinese may have had.

UPDATE

This seems to be a significant step forward. I’m told there are about 40 countries in the clear, about 38 on the ‘will do better’ list, and 6 countries that are named and shamed on the black list.

The countries fingered on the black list are not the usual suspects, which is interesting. I’ll put it up once it is triple checked. There is then a separate list of countries which have yet to be assessed, which could be how China has been satisfied over the Macao issue.

The elegance of this compromise is apparently that the list will be published by the OECD, rather than the G20. So expect some oblique reference in the final communique.