Leading financial institutions have welcomed a new crackdown on international tax dodging agreed by Europe’s biggest five economies.

Tax and law enforcement agencies in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain have agreed to share data.

But critics said it would only work if the US and other nations signed up.

Meanwhile, UK Chancellor George Osborne told the BBC that an agreement on an “international blacklist” of tax havens would be drawn up.

It came as the G20 group of nations, featuring some of the most powerful economies, said it would welcome such a list of proscribed havens.

“That means the whole world can take action against those who aren’t playing by the rules, and the world has just got a much colder place for those hotspots of international tax evasion,” Mr Osborne told BBC business editor Kamal Ahmed.

UK overseas territories such as the British Virgin Islands have been in the tax spotlight, and Mr Osborne said “they will definitely be on that blacklist if they don’t comply with the rules”… Read More

Source: BBC News