Offshore Onshore Mag

* Netherlands Combats Tax Evasion







The Dutch Finance Ministry says it intends to sign "a considerable number of" Tax Information Exchange Agreements with offshore financial centres to combat tax evasion. According to the head of the Bilateral Tax Treaties Department of the Ministry, the move to exchange information is to assist the Tax & Customs Administration to see what is going on in territorial jurisdictions.

The Netherlands recently concluded treaties with the UK Crown Dependencies of the Isle of Man and Jersey, and negotiations are underway with Guernsey. Reportedly, the next round of talks will be held with the UK's Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, including Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands.

Earlier, the Ministry had announced that it was negotiating already with the following countries on general conventions aimed at avoiding double taxation and preventing tax evasion or on amending protocols in this context, or planning to negotiate on these subjects with the following countries before the end of 2007:

Algeria, Australia, Azerbeidzjan, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Cuba, Cyprus, France, Germany, Ghana, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, the Isle of Man, Japan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Saudi-Arabia, South Korea, Switzerland, Turkey, Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

The Ministry of Finance had requested interested parties to inform it of international tax issues in connection with the above-mentioned countries, so that such could be included in the proposed negotiations. It also indicated that the same request applied to international tax issues in connection with any other countries not included in the targeted list, ”so that these can be included in the considerations with regard to the composition of the negotiation programme for the next few years.”