THE Singapore government passed a bill on Monday amending its income tax law to help fight cross-border tax evasion.

Here are some questions and answers about the bill.

WHY NOW?

In recent years, the G20 and the OECD have been applying increasing pressure on the world's major tax havens to change their practices. In April the OECD published an updated list of such havens. The appearance of the list triggered a rush among the listed countries to become compliant ' the G20 member nations have hinted that sanctions are possible for those on its 'blacklist'.

WHO IS ON THE OECD LISTS?

Only four countries were put on the blacklist in April: Costa Rica, Malaysia, the Philippines and Uruguay. Singapore was placed on a 'grey' list of territories that have agreed to improve transparency but have not yet signed the necessary international accords.

HOW ARE THE NEW TREATIES AND THE NEW LAW DIFFERENT?

The old OECD standard treaty called for treaty partners to exchange only information that they already collected for their own purposes. In the case of Hong Kong and Singapore, that has generally meant income tax.

The new treaties require countries to gather a broader range of information, including customs duty, VAT, inheritance tax and stamp duty.

The amended law will allow tax officials to provide information, including information held by a bank or trust company, if a treaty partner makes a request for information that is specific, detailed and relevant to the tax affairs of a given taxpayer.

HOW MANY TREATIES HAS SINGAPORE SIGNED?

Singapore has signed 11 new treaties, with Mexico, Qatar, Norway, Austria, Australia, the Netherlands, UK, Denmark, New Zealand, Belgium and Bahrain. It only needs one more to be taken off the OECD 'grey' list. It has already agreed the OECD standard with another nine countries but has yet to formally sign those.