Although the Cayman Islands has avoided the dreaded G20 summit blacklist, it has still found itself on the so-called grey list, while in comparison the UK’s crown dependencies have landed on the white list. Caymans and six other UK overseas territories were put on the OECD's grey list while the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey appear on the white list, despite the OECD’s praising Cayman in a statement on Wednesday.
Reports stated that the crown dependencies have signed a flurry of tax agreements in the last few weeks ahead of the G20 summit. Not surprisingly the Manx government, which has signed over 14 tax information agreements, said it welcomed the OECD report. ‘We are delighted that our work has been recognised at the highest level and a distinction made between those jurisdictions that have made great strides in this arena and those that have not," said Tony Brown.
Cayman, however has also engaged in a flurry of its own and now has some 20 agreements in place with others pending. Reports from G20 suggest that the OECD has placed Cayman on the grey list as it needs to review its most recent agreements.
Yesterday, the Cayman Islands government said that the agreements it had made were not too late and had been timed to draw attention to Cayman’s level of compliance at the right time, which was demonstrated by a recent OECD statement that described the recent deal with the seven Nordic countries as a significant step forward.
“The Cayman Islands was one of the first jurisdictions to commit to the new standard in May 2000,” said Jeffrey Owens, Director of the OECD’s Centre for Tax Policy Administration. “I welcome the fact that this commitment is now being implemented by the latest TIEAs. Their new legislation is innovative and could speed up the process of implementing the standard.”
The OECD also noted that Cayman was one of 11 jurisdictions that contributed to the development of the Model Agreement on Exchange information Matters.
“I am very pleased to see the pace of implementation now being accelerated and I appreciate the fact that the Cayman Islands has sought to simplify the means by which to broaden its information exchange relationships. The Cayman Islands is setting a good example,” Owens added.