Gibraltar on OECD tax information exchange white list

With the signing of tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs) with Finland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands in October, Gibraltar now has a total of 13 agreements and has been transferred by the OECD to the white list.

The white list is a list of countries that have signed 12 or more TIEAs, criteria decided by the Group of 20 and the OECD in April 2009.

Gibraltar, like most other countries, and in order to avoid discrimination against its finance centre, waited for the establishment of a level playing field before actively seeking partner countries with which to sign TIEAs. This happened in March when Switzerland, Luxembourg and Austria, as full members of the OECD, accepted the tax information exchange principle.

In April 2009 the Gibraltar government declared a November 20 target date to sign at least 12 agreements and move onto the white list.

Gibraltar focused on signing TIEAs with the principal countries of the OECD. In a statement the government said it was committed “to the underlying principles of the commitments that we gave. 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.”

The government has also publishing a bill for an Act of the Gibraltar Parliament to put these agreements into practice. The Act is expected to be law by the end of 2009.

Gibraltar has to date signed TIEAs with the US, Ireland, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, UK, Denmark, Austria, France, Portugal, Finland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands.