Marshall Langer, one of the world's top tax lawyers, strongly criticised the OECD moves for tax harmonisation in a speech recently published on the Internet. He defines the OECD as "essentially a cartel consisting of the world's richest countries, most of which are high-tax jurisdictions'.

Mr. Langer is renowned and highly regarded throughout the offshore world for his vast expertise in the field of tax planning. He is counsel to law firm Shutts & Bowen in both Miami and London and is on the advisory committee of the International Tax Planning Association. He has authored several books on the topic and is co-author of Rhoades and Langer, which is updated four times a year and is regarded by tax practitioners as the definitive tome.

In his speech he acknowledged the OECD has done some excellent work on eliminating double taxation, but he said the OECD's member selection is done in a way that excludes most countries and its policies are designed to aid members rather than the whole world. "No one other than its own members has ever given it a mandate to tell other countries how to behave. It functions to help its members even if that means harming other countries whose policies are detrimental to those of OECD members.''

He was scathing about the organisation, saying: "The people who run the OECD are government bureaucrats who live in high tax Paris on tax-free salaries paid for by the taxpayers of the OECD member countries.''

The blacklist drawn up by the OECD of countries not willing or able to co-operate with its requirements, as stated in its report `Harmful Tax Competition,' he feels is based on false premises set out by the member countries. Some low-tax jurisdictions have been threatened with sanctions, a fate Bermuda avoided by agreeing to co-operate, and Mr. Langer sees this as a violation of OECD power.

No one outside the OECD has empowered the OECD to use its massive economic power to crush tax competition offered by low-tax countries that are not OECD members. Even worse, most OECD member states are guilty of egregious unfair tax competition that is much more serious and harmful than that of which the OECD is complaining,'' he said.

He gave a long list of examples of tax competition that is rife in the US, UK, Switzerland, Austria, Canada, Belgium, France, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Portugal and Spain.

He concluded his speech, It is obvious that the United States, Britain and many of the other member states are significant tax havens. The OECD countries should not attack other jurisdictions unless and until they first clean up their own act, something I suspect many of them will never really do.

"If there is to be a dialogue concerning the elimination of harmful tax it should be carried on by an organisation such as the United Nations, the IMF or the WTO in which all countries are represented, not by the OECD tax cartel."