Belmopan, 24 May 2010. It appears the Belize government has been making slow progress to get into the good graces of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development – OECD.  In February of this year international reports surfaced that Belize could be sanctioned by G20 Leaders for not having signed enough tax exchange agreements. Belize has since then moved to sign tax information agreements with several countries.

Most Caribbean leaders have condemned the OECD tax standards as discriminatory, pointing out that many financial centers in the U.S.A. and Europe also conduct offshore banking, but have not been
subjected to the same scrutiny as many of the Caribbean territories that
have been singled out. The
Government of Belize recently signed tax information agreements with a number of
nations including the U.K., Australia, Belgium, and The Netherlands.

But
it appears the Government has not done enough, because this week when
the OECD announced that it had removed three countries from its
cautionary “grey list” to its safe “white list”, Belize was not one of
them.

The OECD has placed Dominica, Grenada, and St. Lucia on its
white list, for having substantially implemented the standard on
transparency and exchange of information.  The OECD says the three
countries have signed at least twelve tax information exchange
agreements.

Jeffrey Owens, Director of the OECD’s Centre for Tax
Policy and Administration, said: “We continue to see a great deal of
progress in the Caribbean as jurisdictions move to sign agreements.

“We
will be working with the remaining Caribbean jurisdictions – Belize,
Costa Rica, Guatemala, Montserrat and Panama – to encourage them to
follow this trend, providing them with whatever assistance is needed.”