PRESS RELEASE N° 3162 January 18 2012   PASCAL SAINT-AMANSSAID TO URUGUAY: “IT IS NECESSARY TO SIGN AN AGREEMENT WITH ARGENTINA” The Director of the Global Forum Secretary, Pascal Saint-Amans, said it was necessary for Uruguay to sign a tax information agreement with Argentina. The officer, who will assume asDirector of the OECD’s Tax Policy and Administration Center on February 1,revealed that he met with the Uruguayan government and that they had expressed their intention to sign an agreement with our country. During a press conference, Saint-Amans explained that last year the OECD presented a report in Cannes. Said report listed all the countries that comply with the rules and all the countries that had to make improvements to achieve transparency. According to the officer, Uruguay, that was second in the list, has showed important improvements at the Global Forum. However, he repeated the importance of signing an agreement with Argentina and Brazil. The officer admitted that the execution of an agreement could cause some inconveniences to the bank system, but he said: “they will have to decide if they want to have bad clients or transparent investors”. Saint-Amans added that during his meeting with the neighboring country, they “decided to eliminate the bearer shares and to celebrate an agreement with Argentina to exchange information”. The future OECD’s Director preferred to avoid the subject of possible consequences to Uruguay if it decided to keep the bank secrecy or if it refused to sign the agreements. “We prefer not to thinkabout what would happen if they do not sign the agreement. We prefer to find a way to make them sign it”, he pointed out. In addition, he added “three years ago no one thought that Switzerland was going to provide information about their clients. Evidently, the world is changing”. Finally, the officer mentioned the three measures that he will adopt when he assumes the position currently held by Jeffrey Owens: the OECD will be opened to non-member countries as regards tax matters; the OECD will try to find the “right balance” between the international tax rules that allow governments to collect taxes and the legal safety that the companies need to do business;and finally, he will work hard to avoid double exemption and to eliminate the double taxation.