BIBA President disappointed
CONNIE Smith, President of the Barbados International Business Association (BIBA), said BIBA is very disappointed that Barbados’ name has appeared on this list of allegedly non co-operative countries indulging on tax avoidance.
News broke about the development last week. However, the EU has withdrawn the blacklist.
But at a news conference on Friday, Smith said that the use of the words tax avoidance is very interesting, in that it is a legitimate and a legal activity.
“It is clearly within our rights to optimise our tax position, and therefore try as much as possible to avoid taxation, as long as we do it within the ambit of the laws,” the BIBA Official said.
However, the official maintained that it differs from tax evasion, which is an illegal activity and at the moment, “we seem to be continuing to blur the lines between avoidance and evasion”.
According to her, “So there is an important differentiation that needs to be made in that regard.”
The BIBA official explained to the media that the organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has issued an action plan to deal with 15 items relating to transparency and greater exchange of information, and business purposes and subjects in jurisdictions that offer international business and financial services.
In those 15 items, they have not set about to take away the opportunities of people, including individuals and companies, to avoid taxation.
As such, she went on, “We still have a right to optimise our tax position, and we are hugely disappointed that we are on the list, which is still proposing to have a legal activity that we are engaging in.”
“I would like to throw my support behind Minister (Donville) Inniss in challenging the integrity of the list for the reasons that he outlined earlier, as well.”
However, Smith thinks that there is an opportunity for Barbados in this process, and that is for the countries that are included on that list, most of those are not active trade partners of Barbados.
“We have countries like Bolivia, Latvia, Slovenia and others who are not active trade partners, and we should engage in bilateral discussions with them, not only to get our names off the list, but to demonstrate what the opportunities are for their countries to enter into double taxation treaties and bilateral investment treaties with Barbados, and encourage them to use Barbados in their international business,” she added.
She was very happy to hear the OECD had distanced itself from the initiative.
“We will continue to work with the OECD on a number of measures they have in the action plan,” Smith added.
