St Kitts And Nevis To Improve Tax Info Exchange
Caribbean territory Saint Kitts and Nevis has proposed legislative changes to improve its ability to exchange information with treaty partners in tax matters.
The territory’s Prime Minister, Timothy Harris, explained that the changes have been prompted by an increasing number of requests from treaty partners, which he attributed to a recent OECD assessment that rated the territory as ‘largely compliant,” one notch below the highest possible rating.
This assessment was as part of a first phase peer review undertaken by the OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, which looked at the legal arrangements in place to enable the exchange of information. In an upcoming second phase review, Saint Kitts and Nevis will need to demonstrate that it exchanges information effectively in practice.
Harris said: “Since that assessment, we have seen an increase in the number of requests from our treaty partners to which we have endeavored to provide responses within the time frame that is stipulated in the international standards. The experience that we have gained from processing these incoming requests have necessitated that we strengthen the Saint Christopher and Nevis (Mutual Exchange of Information on Taxation Matters) Act so that we, as a Federation, could be more efficient and effective in our practice of exchanging information for tax purposes with our treaty partners.”
The Federation currently has exchange of information mechanisms with 37 jurisdictions, through 24 tax information exchange agreements and 13 double tax conventions.
