The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) announced today that the Republic of the Marshall Islands has made a commitment to implement a programme to improve transparency and to establish effective exchange of information in tax matters. Consequently, the Marshall Islands becomes the second country in the past month, following Liberia, to be removed from the OECD’s list of unco-operative tax havens. Only 3 countries remain on the OECD’s list of unco-operative tax havens: Andorra, Liechtenstein and Monaco.

A release from the OECD says that the Marshall Islands joins 34 other jurisdictions that have made similar commitments aimed at ensuring an environment in which all significant financial centres meet high standards of transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes.

The OECD points to the latest Global Forum on Taxation Report, which it says confirms that most countries have made considerable progress in implementing transparency and exchange of information standards.