Turkey's current strategy based on intergovernmental agreements with Russia and Japan is laced with irony since it is motivated by energy security considerations and yet relies on foreign entities for construction, ownership and operation of nuclear power plants as well as the development of human capacity.
Robert Stack, the Treasury deputy assistant secretary for international tax affairs, said in a statement on the latest extension, "We are providing an additional six months to complete intergovernmental agreements with countries and jurisdictions across the globe".
Intergovernmental agreements make a difference and are worth striving for.
"Why else would they need another six months to push everybody into the intergovernmental agreements?" James Hines, a corporate taxation professor at the University of Michigan, said some foreign governments were refusing to cooperate with the new rules.
The new intergovernmental agreements declare that the Treasury Department will seek legislative approval to disclose a much broader array of data covering investments, pensions and insurance.
Though to some degree they go against the principles of solidarity and consensus in the 27-nation European Union, intergovernmental agreements among some but not all members have always been an option.
All the other 26 European Union countries either agreed to the proposals, which will be negotiated according to intergovernmental agreements, or said they would seek the approval of their parliaments back home.
In July, Representative Bill Posey, a Florida Republican who is on the House Financial Services Committee, wrote to Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew to complain that the original legislation did not give the Treasury the authority to seal intergovernmental agreements or share client data.
She seems to favour more intergovernmental agreements.
Richardson says the scores might provide useful peer pressure to improve commitments to intergovernmental agreements.
