US Treasury Comments on OECD Blacklist
U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill released a statement recently saying the OECD's ability to whittle its list of non-cooperative tax havens to seven depended on help from the United States.
"I am glad to see our efforts last spring to refocus the OECD project on information exchange and transparency have led to these results," O'Neill said. "I applaud these countries for coming forward to make a commitment to improve their tax information exchange and transparency policies."
In 2001, President George W. Bush announced that the international organization was concentrating too much on attempting to mold countries' tax policies into complementary positions. The Treasury Department suggested the OECD focus on policies of information exchange between nations.
Last week, the U.S. government said that all but four of the countries on the first draft of the OECD's blacklist committed to the OECD after the U.S. made that suggestion.
FATF Updates Non-Cooperative Country List
At its semi-annual meeting, the Financial Action Task Force on Jan. 29 and Feb. 1 did not take action on its list of non-cooperative countries but did move efforts to curb financial terrorism
forward.
The FATF has a list of 19 jurisdictions it deems non-cooperative. It includes the Cook Islands, Dominica, Egypt, Grenada, Guatemala, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Lebanon, the Marshall Islands,
Myanmar, Nauru, Nigeria, Niue, the Philippines, Russia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the Ukraine.
The group said its members should take financial counter-measures against Nauru, which were announced Dec. 5, 2001. The measures are in response to the jurisdiction's failure to enact effective money laundering legislation.
In June, the FATF plans to remove Guatemala, the Philippines, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Russia and Israel from its list in response to those countries' implementation of positive measures.
IOM to 'Name and Shame'
The Isle of Man's Financial Supervision Commission is incorporating a "name and shame" initiative aimed at preventing certain people from serving in key positions of companies licensed by the FSC.
Any person found to be unfit to serve as a director, manager, controller or "key person" will be listed on a public register on the agency's Web site.
According to the May 2002 issue of International Enforcement Law Reporter, John Aspen, head of the FSC, said the publication of the names will help protect consumers.