OECD project on High Net Worth Individuals

Discussion paper published for public comment

OECD has published a discussion paper in relation to its project looking at the best way for administrations to deal with the tax affairs of High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI). This is a follow-up to the earlier OECD project on Tax Intermediaries on which the report was published in January 2008. A review of that project and of the Tax Faculty involvement was published in the February 2008 issue of TAXline which is available for all members of Tax Faculty.

The latest discussion paper focuses on how tax administration resources can be used more effectively and the role that co-operative compliance approaches might play in this.

Comments on the discussion paper are requested by 31 December and if any reader has any comments which they would like to be considered for inclusion in the Tax Faculty response then please provide them to Ian Young by 10 December at the latest.

There is going to be a public consultation meeting on 4 December in London hosted jointly by UK HMRC and the Irish Revenue as well as a meeting before the end of the year in Australia. There will then be a further meeting in Paris hosted by OECD on 9 February 2009.

The intention is to complete the project report by 31 March 2009 so that it can be considered and approved by the next meeting of the OECD Forum on Tax Administration which meets in Mexico in May 2009.

In addition to the HNWI project there are two other projects which stem from the original Tax Intermediaries work. The first project is in relation to banks and we reported when the terms of reference for that project were put on the OECD website in the early part of September. In the near future papers relevant to this project will be placed on the OECD website with an invitation to comment.

The other project is in relation to Large Business Compliance. The Task Group working on this project hopes to put papers related to it on the OECD website for comment in early 2009.

9 November 2008