U.S. Assistant Treasury Secretary Mark Weinberger told free market activists on 17 April the United States does not intend to join the OECD in threatening sanctions against 35 low-tax jurisdictions, columnist Robert Novak wrote in a  19 April Chicago Sun-Times article.

Document Type: Press Watch International

Tax Analysts Electronic Citation: 2001 WTD 78-13

Citations: Chicago Sun-Times, 19 Apr 2001 (19 Apr 2001) 

=============== SUMMARY =============== 

     U.S. Assistant Treasury Secretary Mark Weinberger told free market activists  on 17 April that the United States has no intention of joining the OECD in  threatening sanctions against the 35 low-tax jurisdictions the multinational organization placed on its July 2000 blacklist, columnist Robert Novak wrote in a 19 April Chicago Sun- Times article.

     Weinberger did tell participants in the closed-door meeting that the United States would support the OECD in its goal of sharing information, Novak cited sources present as saying. The meeting included Dan Mitchell of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity -- an organization created specifically to fight  the OECD initiative -- and two former chief economists for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Richard Rahn and Lawrence Hunter. Novak also reported that Lawrence Lindsey -- U.S. President George W. Bush's national economic adviser -- who has long advocated financial privacy, recently advised opponents of the OECD campaign to push U.S. Treasury  Secretary Paul O'Neill to give a speech on behalf of tax competition. O'Neill  has yet to state whether the United States supports the OECD effort to end  so-called "harmful" tax competition.

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