On Recent Developments in Fighting Harmful Tax Practices

The recent uncovered cases of tax evasion in the European Union and the United States have revived the fight against harmful tax practices and spurred impressive progress in the adoption of international standards on information exchange. This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on harmful tax practices and information exchange on the size and consequences of the existence of tax havens and harmful tax regimes. The paper also describes the multilateral approaches developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Union and examines recent developments in fighting harmful tax practices.