As G20 leaders convened this week to address the economic crisis, and with the issue of tax havens high on their agenda, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reconfirmed that Malta is on its white list of States implementing the internationally agreed tax standard.

The reconfirmation comes despite the country having been labelled as a tax haven and included on a black list forming part of the proposed Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act before the United States Congress.

The act, co-sponsored by then senator and now President Barack Obama, lists Malta as one of 34 countries on its initial list of “offshore secrecy jurisdictions”.

Describing the countries, including Malta, on the proposed law’s black list, fellow co-sponsor Senator Carl Levine is quoted as having said, “They peddle secrecy in the way other countries advertise high quality services. That secrecy is used to cloak tax evasion and other misconduct.”

A number of international news reports in the lead up to the G20 also referred to Malta as a tax haven, despite the country having avoided the OECD’s black list back in 2000 after it pledged to meet international norms by 2005. And nothing, according to the OECD, has changed since then.

According to its progress report on jurisdictions surveyed by the OECD published on Friday, Malta is on the white list of “jurisdictions that have substantially implemented the internationally agreed tax standard”.

Austria, Belgium and Luxemburg are the only EU states included on the grey list of countries committed to the standard but which have not yet satisfactorily implemented it.  The only jurisdictions on the OECD’s black list that face the threat of OECD sanctions are Costa Rica, the Philippines, Uruguay and the Malaysian territory of Labuan.

The internationally agreed tax standard requires the exchange of information on tax matters for the administration and enforcement of domestic law.

While providing extensive safeguards to protect the confidentiality of the information exchanged, it supersedes any domestic bank secrecy mechanisms for tax purposes only.  It was endorsed by G20 finance ministers in 2004, as well as by the UN Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters in 2008.