OECD's+Global+Forum+on+Transparency+and+Exchange+of+Information

The Global Forum of Transparency and Exchange of Information (often refered to as just The Global Forum), was set up to work with issues regarding risks tied to tax compliance going on in the tax havens. The Global Forum is today an international body, which primary goal is to make sure that the internationally agreed standards of transparency and exchange of information regarding tax, are carried out.

=Members=

Since November 2013, the Global Forum has 121 members, which includes: all OECD countries, all G20 countries and all the financial centres that were part of the original Global Forum. In addition to these members, the Global Forum has invited countries, which have some sort of relevance to the work carried out to join, and later on as a request of the G20, developing countries have been invited to join the Global Forum.

=Terms of Reference=

All the members are review against the standard of information exchange on request. These standards are divided into three main categories, which all include ten essential elements and can be found in the Terms of Reference of the Global Forum.

The first category in the Terms of Reference is "Availability of Information", which means that relevant ownership and identity inforamtion of legal entities and arrangements and their accounts has to be available. Secondly there has to be "Access to Information", meaning that authorities should be able to access any relevant information. The third category is "Exchanging information", which means that information exchange should be allowed, but also ensure confidentiality in the exchange process.

Exchange of Information on Request
The exchange of information on request is a process where an authority from one jurisdiction asks another jurisdictions authority for some information. The request should preferably be written and be as detailed as possible about what is requested. The exchange of information is usually concerning a some sort of investigation or inquiry of a taxpayer's tax liability.

=Peer Review= For all of the jurisdictions, peer reviews are carried out in two phases. In the first phase a review is done of each jurisdiction’s legal and regulatory framework for transparency and the exchange of information and in the second phase a survey is done to measure how well the standrads are implemented.

Phase 1
In this first phase a review is done in order to assess the legal and administrative framework of a juridsiction in the light of the essential elements. The report that is produced in this phase is presented under the three main categories of the Terms of Reference. The report produced also includes any defects found and recommendations of how to tackle these.

Phase 2
In Phase 2 the jurisdiction is rated on the basis of how well each of the elements in the Global Forum’s Terms of Reference are in practice implemented. This phase focuses much on the how effective the exchange of information is. The outcome of the scond phase is a four-tier rating system for each jurisdiction. toc