Bermuda – the world's former "top tax haven" – has joined the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's fight against multinational profit shifting.

Bermuda disputes it is a tax haven despite companies such as Apple and Google in the past being accused of using the British overseas territory to minimise the taxes through a tactic dubbed as the "Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich".

The strategy, which has been legally used by companies for decades but is now shunned by tax authorities, involves using payments between related entities in a corporate structure – for example between higher tax nations (such as the United States) and its subsidiaries in lower tax nations (such as Ireland, the Netherlands and Bermuda) – to shift income and thereby reduce tax.

The OECD says Bermuda is among a handful of new nations that have finally joined the crackdown on multinationals known as Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, or BEPS. Other nations to come on board in January include Kazakhstan and West Africa's Cote d'Ivoire.