Monaco vows to get off tax haven grey list by year-end

MONACO: Monaco said on Friday it aimed by the end of the year to be dropped from a "grey" list of financial centres that forms the basis of the Group of 20 summit's crackdown on tax havens.

"We are on the right track. We hope to be able to definitively leave the grey list towards the end of the year," said Jean-Paul Proust, the minister of state, the equivalent of prime minister of the principality.

"We were on a blacklist which we have been saying for a long time was obsolete. We are satisfied to no longer be on it. We believe it is fairer to be on the grey list," he told AFP.

In a three-tier list categorising tax havens and financial centres by their degree of cooperation that was endorsed by the G20 leaders meeting in London Thursday, Monaco was placed in the middle tier of countries.

It was listed by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development as a jurisdiction that had adopted OECD standards on exchanging tax information but had not yet "substantially" implemented them.

Monaco, a tiny Mediterranean territory that is home to the rich and famous, promised last month to adopt OECD norms on tax evasion.