Jeffrey Owens, Director of the OECD’s Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, announced today that the Isle of Man and Germany have signed a bilateral agreement for the exchange of information for tax purposes. This brings to 13 the number of such agreements entered into by the Isle of Man.
Mr. Owens says the OECD welcomes the new agreement as a further step in efforts to bring greater transparency and fairness to cross-border financial transactions. *“The time has now come,”* he noted, *“for all jurisdictions that have made commitments to the international standards of transparency and exchange of information to follow the Isle of Man’s lead in implementing them.”*
Since the start of 2007, jurisdictions committed to the OECD principles of transparency and exchange of information have signed a total of 36 bilateral information exchange agreements with OECD countries.
Some 35 jurisdictions have committed to work with OECD countries under the auspices of the OECD’s Global Forum on Taxation to improve transparency and to establish effective information exchange for tax purposes, and many other countries and international organisations have also endorsed these principles. The OECD last September issued the report, *”Tax Co-operation: Towards a Level Playing Field – 2008 Assessment by the Global Forum on Taxation”*. which describes the progress made over the last year in 83 OECD and non OECD economies in implementing standards of transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes.