OECD or Not OECD?


News from Panama / Sunday, September 9th, 2012

In Panama debates are firing up about the requirements for tax information exchange in what The Economist calls the “club of rich countries.”

With the statement that “Panama is going through a tax revolution, with a direct impact on the competitiveness of the country”, an article in Martesfinanciero.com reviews the concepts contributed by authorities and experts to the forum on the The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD)  global project, organized by Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture of Panama (CCIAP).

The opinions cover a wide spectrum, ranging from the position of Eduardo Morgan Jr., managing partner of law firm Morgan & Morgan, which said “the government should be aware that the OECD, which is not an international organization but a club of rich countries, named as such by the Economist and Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics 2008 -, what it does is eliminate competitors. Which we are among”, to that of Economy Minister Frank De Lima, who said “The country is suffering economic sanctions at the hands of a private financing arm of the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Starting in 2011 , the IFC has restricted funding to banks operating in the country and to operations which contain Panamanian corporations, due to the fact that Panama has failed phase 1 of the peer review process. “