Gov’t agrees to meet international tax standards

THE GOVERNMENT recently held bilateral talks with the Code of Conduct Group (COCG) to discuss tax transparency and fair taxation in the territory.

A press release from the Office of the Premier issued on Tuesday (February 27), said Premier Sharlene Cartwright Robinson and other TCI representatives met with the COCG on February 19.

According to the statement, the TCI was unable to complete a compliance-risk assessment for 2017 due to hurricanes Irma and Maria.

But the territory is still required to commit to three fundamental requirements of the EU compliant standard criteria by the end of 2018.

The TCI must have in place tax transparency, fair taxation and implement anti-base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) measures.

The statement further pointed out that tax transparency and anti-BEPS measures are currently in place via the various automatic reporting of financial accounts information carried out by Common Reporting Standard (CRS).

The premier said the meeting at the Office of the Premier was very fruitful and added that further dialogue is expected in order to satisfy the COCG requirements.

“I was pleased for TCI to have been able to have an audience in this way with the COCG on this important issue.

“I was even more pleased to be able to demonstrate to the representatives the important partnership between the public and private sector and our joint commitment to comply with international standards.”

She said it was a great opportunity to enlighten the members of TCI’s position ahead of any official response to the questionnaire.

“The Ministry of Finance along with several key stakeholder departments will continue to lead collaboratively and we are committed to ensuring that TCI is not blacklisted,” she stressed.

The absence of direct taxation in the TCI gives the appearance of preferential treatment for companies to set up offshore structures or arrangements aimed at attracting profits which do not reflect real economic activity in the jurisdiction, the statement said.

The fair taxation criterion is the most critical concern to the COCG evaluation and screening exercise.

All jurisdictions with offshore financial services businesses are affected by this and have to present strategies of how their jurisdictions are proposing to addressed this concern.

Member states of the European Union collectively agree to publish a list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes.

Any country failing to meet the standard for international cooperation defined by the Code of Conduct Group – Business Taxation is deemed to be non-complaint and is named and shamed on the EU Blacklist.