The TIEA was signed by the Financial Services Secretary to the Treasury, Lord Myners, and the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Peter Caruana QC.
Welcoming the signatures, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, the Rt Hon Stephen Timms MP, said:
“I am very grateful to the Government of Gibraltar for their constructive approach to this agreement and I welcome the fact that Gibraltar has now joined the rapidly growing number of jurisdictions making good on their commitments to apply high standards of transparency and exchange of information in tax matters.
“Today’s agreement is in line with the OECD’s standards of transparency and the implementation of these standards is very much in the interests of all those taxpayers who comply with the spirit and letter of the law.”
The text of the TIEA can be accessed on the internet at: www.hmrc.gov.uk/international/gibraltar-eol.pdf
The text will shortly be laid as a Schedule to a draft Order in Council for consideration by the House of Commons. It will then also be available from the Stationery Office. The Arrangement will come into effect as soon as each government has completed the necessary procedures to give effect to it under its domestic laws.
Notes to editors
1. Tax Information Exchange Arrangements (TIEAs) allow governments to enforce their domestic tax laws by exchanging, on request, information relevant to a tax matter covered by the arrangements.
2. The new TIEA with Gibraltar provides for comprehensive exchange of information to the OECD and international tax standard in respect of UK taxes of all kinds.
3. The UK has now signed eight comprehensive TIEAs, including with Guernsey in January and with Jersey in March 2009. The UK also exchanges information with over 100 countries worldwide under Double Taxation Agreements, the provisions of EU Directives and Regulations, and through the Council of Europe/OECD Convention on mutual administrative assistance in tax matters. The UK’s other TIEAs are with Bermuda (in force), the Isle of Man (in force) the British Virgin Islands (signed in 2008), Anguilla and the Turks & Caicos Islands (both signed in July 2009) and Liechtenstein (signed on 11th August). The UK also signed an arrangement with the Cayman Islands in June 2009 that provides, among other things, for information exchange to OECD standards. More TIEAs are being negotiated.