The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says it has broken “through the 100-mark” when two Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries joined others in signing the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters.
The OECD said St Vincent and the Grenadines along with St. Kitts and Nevis joined Burkina Faso, Malaysia, and Samoa in signing the agreement in Paris on Thursday, bringing the number of participating jurisdictions to 103.
The OECD said High Commissioner of St. Vincent and the Grenadines to the United Kingdom Cenio E.Lewis , signed the Convention in a ceremony in Paris on behalf of their respective countries in the presence of the OECD Deputy Secretary-General Mari Kiviniemi.
As a result, the OECD said the Convention will “enter into force in each of these jurisdictions on 1 December 2016.”
““With over 100 countries and jurisdictions now participating in this multilateral tax information sharing agreement, national efforts to combat international tax evasion and avoidance have been substantially strengthened,” she said.
The OECD said the Convention was developed jointly by the Council of Europe in 1988 and amended in 2010 “to respond to the call by the G20 [Group of 20 of the world industrialized nations] to align it to the international standard on exchange of information and to open it to all countries, thus ensuring that developing countries could benefit from the new more transparent environment.”
