The OECD’s Global Forum announced on the 21st of August 2017, that Mauritius received a rating of “Compliant” under a new and enhanced peer review process aimed at assessing compliance with international standards for the exchange of information on request between tax authorities.
Global Forum released the second round of compliance ratings on tax transparency for 10 jurisdictions. The Global Forum is the continuation of a forum which was created in the early 2000s in the context of the OECD’s work to address the risks to tax compliance posed by non-cooperative jurisdictions. Mauritius received an overall rating of “Compliant” alongside Ireland and Norway. Australia, Bermuda, Canada, Cayman Islands, Germany and Qatar were rated “Largely Compliant’ and Jamaica was rated “Partially Compliant”.
The OECD published the following summary on their website regarding the results for Mauritius. “In the second round of reviews, the Global Forum rated Mauritius overall Compliant against the enhanced 2016 Terms of Reference. Some gaps were identified in Mauritius’ legal framework with respect to beneficial ownership information, but the Global Forum was generally satisfied with Mauritius’ regulatory framework and EOI practice. Mauritius has demonstrated the availability and accessibility of both legal and beneficial ownership information, as well as accounting and bank information in practice. Peers continue to be satisfied with the quality and timeliness of Mauritius’ information exchanges.”
Phase 1 (legal and regulatory framework for information exchange) and Phase 2 (actual practices and procedures) was combined with the Global Forum’s new peer review process. The new focus is said to be on an assessment of the availability and access by tax authorities to beneficial ownership information of all legal entities and arrangements.
On the OECD website it is said that “Global Forum members are working together to monitor and review implementation of the international standard for the automatic exchange of financial account information, under the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), which will start in September 2017. The monitoring and review process is intended to ensure the effective and timely delivery of commitments made, the confidentiality of information exchanged and to identify areas where support is needed. ”
Source: OECD website
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