Liechtenstein en Andorra bereid tot aanpassing regels bankgeheim (en)
As pressure mounts on tax havens from global leaders ahead of the April meeting of the G20 to restructure the international financial architecture, Liechtenstein and Andorra have announced that they are to relax aspects of their banking secrecy rules.
Listed on the OECD's roll of uncooperative tax havens, the countries will not end secrecy entirely, but hope to reach bilateral agreements with other countries covering tax evasion.
Liechtenstein on Thursday (12 March) said it is to launch talks on the matter with Germany on Friday and the UK next month. Andorra, for its part, announced that it aims to pass legislation easing bank secrecy by November.
"The Liechtenstein government accepts the OECD standards on transparency and information exchange in tax matters and supports the international measures against non-compliance with tax laws," the principality said in a statement.
The two tiny states, neither of which are in the European Union, are the latest in a list of offshore centres that have come under pressure in the wake of the global financial crisis to ease banking secrecy laws.
This week, the British Channel Island of Jersey reached an agreement with London over the exchange of tax data.
Elsewhere, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Isle of Man, and the Cayman Islands have made similar announcements in recent weeks. Singapore said it would adopt OECD rules earlier this month, while in February, Hong Kong declared it would be exchanging tax information with foreign authorities.
Belgium has also said it is to lift its own banking secrecy rules and share information on account holders with other EU member states. Austria and Luxembourg, the two other member states with banking secrecy laws, are resisting the move. The three countries are not on the OECD list of uncooperative tax havens, however.
The moves come as such fiscal paradises are increasingly targeted by those who would rebuild the global economy.
In Horsham, Sussex, the UK is host to a pre-G20 meeting of finance ministers on Friday and Saturday that will discuss what to do about tax havens, as well as wider questions of re-regulating the financial sector.
Meanwhile on Thursday, coming out of a Franco-German Council of Ministers meeting in Berlin, France and Germany issued a statement calling for an international "sanctions mechanism" to crack down on such fiscal black holes.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel i said: "Every product, every actor and every place in the world must be transparent."
"We must act with all determination," she continued "[against these] uncooperative countries."