The Market Center Blog

Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation

For Immediate Release
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
202-285-0244
www.freedomandprosperity.org

OECD Bait-and-Switch Tactic Unlikely to Rescue
Faltering Tax Harmonization Scheme

Melbourne, Australia (Tuesday, November 15, 2005) – The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) anti-tax competition campaign has been stymied ever since persecuted low-tax jurisdictions correctly insisted that they should not be obliged to eviscerate their attractive domestic policies unless OECD member nations agreed to abide by the same misguided rules. This creates a quandary for the Paris-based bureaucracy since nations such as Luxembourg, the United States, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, and the United Kingdom also are "tax havens" according to the OECD's own definition. Nonetheless, the OECD is hoping to overcome this roadblock at the November 15-16 Melbourne Global Forum.

Supporters of economic liberalization are in Melbourne to help fight against the OECD's campaign, and they offered the following comments:

Andrew Quinlan, President of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation, explained: "Not a single member nation of the OECD has offered to eliminate – or even alter – its tax haven policies. Yet the OECD won't even admit that its original blacklist was based on a discriminatory decision to target only non-OECD jurisdictions."

Daniel Mitchell, Senior Fellow of the Heritage Foundation, commented: "The OECD is circulating a draft report that misleadingly asserts that there has been movement toward a 'level playing field.' This is grossly inaccurate. Although OECD countries have joined low-tax jurisdictions in submitting 'template information' regarding the treatment of non-resident investors, there is a giant gulf between acknowledging a policy and changing it."

Commenting from Washington, DC, Veronique de Rugy a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute stated: "It is a mystery why American taxpayers are picking up one-fourth of the bill for a bureaucracy that is pursuing policies contrary to U.S. interests. The 'level playing field' assumes that governments should double-tax saving and investment on an extra-territorial basis – an approach completely at odds with the tax reform agenda of both the White House and Capitol Hill."

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Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation
P.O. Box 10882
Alexandria, Virginia 22310
Phone: 202-285-0244
www.freedomandprosperity.org
cfp@freedomandprosperity.org

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