Osborne: G7 agree to target tax evasion and avoidance

The G7 group of industrialised nations have agreed that there must be collective action against tax evasion and avoidance, the UK's finance minister has said. Chancellor George Osborne said after the talks that it was "incredibly important" that firms and individuals paid the tax they owed. The members agreed on more policy issues than had been assumed, he added. The G7 comprises the US, Germany, the UK, Japan, Italy, France and Canada. In a news conference held jointly with Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King, Mr Osborne said the countries, meeting in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. had also agreed it was important to ensure that no bank was "too big to fail". "We must put regimes in place... to deal with failing banks and to protect taxpayers and to do so in a globally-consistent manner," he said. The issue of tax avoidance had been raised by Britain, Germany and other big countries earlier this year. They asked the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) - which advises rich nations on tax policy - to examine possible changes to address the problem of multinational companies using transfer pricing rules to shift profits into tax havens. Continue reading the main story Analysis Joe Lynam BBC News Major international summits tend to throw up unusual bedfellows. Here in Aylesbury, we have George Osborne - scion of a Eurosceptic Conservative party - on the same side as the German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble. Both politicians think that spending cuts and deficit reductions are the cure to the economic malaise. They are often referred to as Austerians. The UK and Germany are up against the US and France - the latter two rarely being on the same side of many debates. I bumped into the French finance minister strolling in the beautiful garden here in Aylesbury. He told me the debate was clearly austerity versus stimulus. Both the US - represented here by the new Treasury Secretary Jack Lew - and French administrations believe that economies grow quicker out of slumps after they have been stimulated by government spending. America is growing steadily. Germany is performing well, but France and the UK are barely growing at all. The thing about bedfellows is, they are sometimes fleeting. BBC News correspondent Joe Lynam said the latest talks were an important step towards a new global standard on tax. Britain wants all EU countries to sign up to a pilot scheme where tax authorities share information with each other, our correspondent said, including low tax countries such as Luxembourg and Austria. Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the UK and US are currently signed up to the scheme. Luxembourg has said it will join too, but Austria has yet to confirm if it will take part. The chancellor said the discussions had "reaffirmed that there are still many challenges to securing sustainable global recovery, and we can't take it for granted". But he added: "We are committed as the advanced economies in playing our part in nurturing that recovery and ensuring a lasting recovery so that we have prosperity in all our countries." Prior to the meeting, Mr Osborne had said the group still wielded "major economic firepower" as they represented around half the global economy between them - although the larger G20 was now the "primary economic forum for setting the global rules of the game". There had been talk ahead of the meeting that Japan would be criticised for a massive stimulus plan that had pushed down the value of its currency, the yen. But Japan was not censured during the talks, despite some countries being concerned that Tokyo is engineering an export-led recovery that could hinder other regions' ability to grow. Mr Osborne said the G7 had reaffirmed its commitment made in February that its "fiscal and monetary policies have been and will remain orientated towards meeting" its members' respective domestic objectives and "will not target exchange rates". The chancellor faced pressure recently over the pace of the UK's austerity measures. Last month, the International Monetary Fund's chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, reiterated his belief that the chancellor should slow down the pace of the cutbacks. But on Saturday, Mr Osborne said that while the UK's economic situation was difficult, "we are making progress and the economy is healing".