FOUR MORE countries have bowed to international pressure to crack down on tax havens and agreed to commit to OECD tax standards.

Costa Rica, Malaysia, the Philippines and Uruguay have all been removed from the OECD blacklist as non co-operative tax havens and agreed to implement internationally agreed tax standards.

The four nations have officially informed the OECD that they will co-operate to fight tax abuse and incorporate the standard on exchange of information into their existing laws and treaties.

The bid to clean up tax havens was announced at the G20 summit in London to tackle the global problem of tax evasion.

Action to increase the exchange of information and transparency in the fight against tax abuse is to be supported by measures including sanctions against non-conforming countries.

“We continue to see quick progress in the adoption of the OECD standard. I very much welcome that all jurisdictions surveyed by the OECD Global Forum are now committed,” OECD secretary general Angela Gurria said.

The OECD will now work alongside the Committee on Fiscal Affairs and the global forum with all jurisdictions concerned on the issue of standards. The move will aim to speed up the process of negotiating tax information exchange agreements and achieving fast and effective implementation.

A survey conducted by the global forum following the summit has revealed progress in the implementation of the standards.

However, the OECD attracted criticism from Luxembourg and Austria for placing them on the “grey list”, despite the fact that they agreed to loosen banking secrecy regulations.

The full list of unco-operative states is available at www.oecd.org/tax/evasion