The International Monetary Fund (IMF) clarified yesterday that it does not classify Bermuda as a "tax haven" after a story published by the Reuters financial news agency yesterday suggested otherwise.

The Island appeared on a list of jurisdictions in a "Tax Havens Factbox" compiled by Reuters.

The Reuters story suggests that "around 40 countries are still widely viewed as tax havens, according to international organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) and the IMF".

Bermuda has a "yes" beside its name, indicating that the Island appears on the IMF list and the table also shows that the OECD considers the Island "co-operative" in meeting its standards of tax transparency — unlike the likes of Andorra and Liechtenstein.

The Island also appears on the tax havens list of a proposed new American law, the US Stop Tax Havens Abuse Act and that of the www.taxresearch.org website, which works closely with anti-tax haven lobby group, the Tax Justice Network.

The story adds that "the IMF has its own list of off-shore centres in different stages of the Fund's monitoring process".

IMF spokeperson Conny Lotze cleared up the ambiguity yesterday. She said she had referred a Reuters correspondent to an IMF list of offshore financial centres and not to a list of tax havens.

"I cautioned them against using the term 'tax haven' and off-shore financial centre interchangeably in the context of our list," Ms Lotze said.

"The story doesn't make that clear, unfortunately, but does mention that the Fund has a list of off-shore financial centres."

Germany's crackdown on secretive bank accounts in Liechtenstein has put the spotlight on low-tax jurisdictions combining low taxes, strict banking secrecy rules and an unwillingness to cooperate with other countries.

Finance Minister Paula Cox told this newspaper last week that she considered Bermuda as fundamentally different from Liechtenstein, as the Island has no banking secrecy embedded in legislation and has co-operation agreements with the tax authorities of the US, UK, and Australia, with further agreements being discussed.

As for the definition of a "tax haven", widely respected financial publication The Economist has tentatively adopted the description by Colin Powell, a former economic adviser to Jersey: "What ... identifies an area as a tax haven is the existence of a composite tax structure established deliberately to take advantage of, and exploit, a world-wide demand for opportunities to engage in tax avoidance."

The Tax Justice Network estimates that global tax authorities miss out on around $250 billion each year because people hold money off shore, calling that estimate "extremely conservative".