Monday, February 15, 2010
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Letters | Opinion | Editorial | Weekend Report |
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Tax treaties firmly in focus By Scott Armstrong ~ Guardian Business Editor ~ scott@nasguard.com: "Feverish" activity is expected in the next two weeks as the government works to sign the last two international tax agreements required to avoid being black-listed. Speaking at the International Business & Finance Summit, in Bimini, Deputy Prime Minister Brent Symonette told more than 100 delegates The Bahamas was "on-track" to meet its obligation to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), to have 12 tax information exchange agreements (TIEAS) signed by the end of next month. He told the conference, organized by the Bahamas Financial Services Board, that: "We have signed to date ten TIEAS, we have 16 further that are initialed. "My travel schedule for the next couple of weeks is fairly hectic while we move forward signing a number of TIEAs we have initialed - all of which are in Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Ministries of Finance throughout the world. "We are working feverishly to complete this process by the end of the first quarter of this year, we are on track and we look forward to being able to issue a statement on where we move from a grey list to another area of the international financial market. "Also in the area of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs we are working on bilateral relationships so we can develop treaties across the world." The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has set March 31 as a deadline for countries to sign at least 12 TIEAs to avoid some type of retaliatory action – likely sanctions – by the bloc of western industrial countries. The government has already signed 10 TIEAs with the following countries: The United States, Monaco, San Marino, The United Kingdom, New Zealand, The Netherlands, China, Argentina, Belgium, and France. And TIEA negotiations have been successfully concluded, the government has stated, with Germany, Canada, Spain, Mexico, Australia, South Africa, South Korea, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The Deputy Prime Minister also told summit delegates that the government was working hard to make it easier to do business in The Bahamas. He said: "We seek to leverage the opportunities for international business through an integrated approach for business development, focusing on the appropriate tactics and tools. "The summit recognizes that international business, including financial services, is certainly a dynamic business with significant opportunities for growth and significant contribution to the socio-economic health of The Bahamas. "We have tried over the past several years to move to open trade in The Bahamas with the elimination of borders in trade and goods and services, and on the customs side trying to reduce the duties that are applied on many goods being imported. "We are now down a very acceptable level and we hope to reduce it even further. "This of course has cause for many domestic policies to be reviewed, not only political but economic, to ensure that The Bahamas is in tune with the overall global developments, including the regulation of international trade. "We have to be positioned to take advantage of that." He cited the ongoing efforts to bring The Bahamas closer to international trade and the goal to be accepted as a member of the World Trade Organization. He said: "If it were not for the international economic crisis we had hoped to open an office in Geneva in the last year, we trust the budget will allow us to do it this year so that we can position our foreign affairs offices, but also finance offices, to work with the WTO on our accession to that organization."
Tuesday February 2, 2010 |
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