The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says it is now moving to the enforcement phase in its crack down on tax havens.
The director of the OECD’s Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, Jeffrey Owens said that progress made earlier this year, in setting tougher disclosure requirements had amounted to a revolution.
At their meeting in London in April, world leaders agreed to clamp down on tax evasion and banking secrecy, and asked the Paris-based organisation to publish lists of tax havens. The OECD says it will now focus on assessing the extent to which the standards are met in practice, and seek to close loopholes in implementation.
There are now 59 countries on the OECD’s so-called ‘white list’ of countries that have implemented internationally agreed tax standards. Twenty-eight, including Caribbean countries, remain on the ‘grey list’, having committed to the standards without fully implementing them.
ID fraud on the rise
Regional security officials are reporting an increase in the use of fake birth certificates and national ID cards to obtain legitimate travel documents.
This is one of the findings of a regional workshop on Best Practices in Document Security and Fraud Prevention, now taking place in Grenada.
Brian Sullivan is the programme manager for document security in the Secretariat of the Inter-American Committee against Terrorism. He said people are exploiting the weaknesses in what are referred to as “breeder documents”, or identity documents – birth certificates, national ID cards.
Sixty candidates for Dominica poll
Electoral officials in Dominica say a record 60 candidates have filed nomination papers for this month’s general election.
That’s 16 more than the figure for the 2005 poll.
The incumbent Dominica Labour party is fielding a full slate of candidates, while the main opposition United Workers Party is contesting 17 of the 21 seats.
The minority opposition Dominica Freedom Party has put forward 11 candidates.
Two other parties and three independent candidates are also contesting the poll.
