Georgia maintains “largely compliant” overall rating of Global Forum on Transparency, Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes

The Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published an assessment report on Thursday, with Georgia maintaining a “largely compliant” overall rating.

As a result of a three-year study of the country, the OECD determined that the legislation and practices in Georgia were in line with international standards on transparency and information exchange for tax purposes, the Finance Ministry said.

In eight out of 10 elements of the evaluation methodology, Georgia was given the highest rating “compliant” in the second round of assessment of the country, the Ministry noted, adding Georgia was ahead of several European Union member countries, including Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland and Greece, as well as Hungary, Latvia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland and Slovakia.

Georgia’s legal and regulatory framework is generally in place to ensure the availability of legal ownership, accounting and banking information”, the OECD report said, stressing the need for further improvement to ensure the availability of beneficial ownership information, “which is only available through anti-money laundering obligations” and “such obligations do not cover all relevant legal persons and arrangements”.

The latest review also highlighted the improvements made by Georgia on access to banking information and creating exceptions to professional secrecy accorded to lawyers and accountants, “thus enabling access to beneficial ownership information maintained by these professionals”. It also called for additional improvements for better supervision of “non-business professions that could be a source of beneficial ownership information".