The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development appears to have updated its so called “grey list” of jurisdictions that have not yet substantially implemented the international organisation’s standards on taxation.

The standard was internationally endorsed by the finance ministers of the G20 nations at their meeting in Berlin in 2004. In October 2008, the UN Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters also endorsed this standard.

Throughout the last year several countries, including Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Monaco, initialled and signed sufficient double taxation agreements to be removed from what has controversially become known as the OECD’s “grey list”.

The OECD requires a state to sign 12 agreements before they can be placed on their taxation compliance “white-list”.

The organisation has divided its "grey list" of “jurisdictions that have committed to the internationally agreed tax standards, but have not yet substantially implemented [them]” into countries that were identified as “tax havens” in 2000 and those that weren’t. The list only included jurisdictions that have committed to implementing the new tax standards.

The grey list now includes the following countries that were branded “tax haven” in 2000: Anguilla (which has so far initialled 11 agreements), Belize (2), Cook Island (11), Dominica (1), Grenada (2), Liberia (0), Marshall Islands (1), Montserrat (3), Nauru (0), Niue (0), Panama (1), St Kitts and Nevis (10), St Lucia (5), St Vincent and the Grenadines (8), and Vanuatu (1).

The list also includes the following jurisdictions, which have not been named “tax havens”: Brunei (which has so far initialled 8 agreements), Costa Rica (1), Guatemala (0), Philippines (0) and Uruguay (0).