OECD Reports Cook Islands ‘Largely Compliant’
The Cook Islands has been rated “largely compliant” in a phase two peer group review conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD’s) Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes.
The key findings of the review were that the Cook Islands has adequate laws that requires authorities to make available tax information, and the territory has effective systems in place for the monitoring and enforcement of its tax information exchange obligations in practice.
However, the OECD Global Forum recommended that the Cook Islands should clarify its legislation governing the maintenance of underlying accounting records and monitor the effectiveness of the new accounting record-keeping obligations.
It was confirmed that the Cook Islands answered all requests for information from treaty partners in a full and timely manner, and its peers were very satisfied with the territory as an exchange of information partner. Given that the Cook Islands received a relatively small number of requests in the review period, the Global Forum also recommended that the Cook Islands monitor its exchange of information capacity.
