The OECD's latest report on tax matters takes a look into various approaches adopted by Revenue Authorities when tackling aggressive tax planning. The approaches reviewed range from mandatory disclosure rules (as in the UK, and recently Ireland) to forms of co-operative compliance.

The OECD report concludes that disclosure initiatives can help fill the gap between the creation/ promotion of aggressive tax planning schemes and their identification by the authorities, therefore enabling governments to proceed immediately to an assessment of the issue and its resolution.

Judging by this report it seems that only five OECD countries operate a Mandatory Disclosure regime – Canada, US, UK, Portugal and Ireland. Of these, only the UK admits to special arrangements in favour of the legal profession under Legal Professional Privilege. Other than that, the Mandatory Disclosure regimes follow a pattern – arrangements defined within categories and/or by hallmarks, a specified interval to make a report ranging from the sane (in Canada) to the bizarre (in Ireland and the UK), and severe financial penalties for failing to comply.

It is ironic that at a time when Ireland's tax regime is under unparalleled criticism and pressure from abroad that yet again, an objective international evaluation shows us to be top of the class in the way we conduct our tax affairs.

Details on the report are available at http://www.oecd.org/document/61/0,3746,en_21571361_44315115_47019709_1_1_1_1,00.html