…Foreign Affairs pens letter for clarification
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, Mar. 14.2018 – The EU Finance Ministers yesterday (Mar.13) took a decision to add St. Kitts and Nevis, the Bahamas, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Antigua and Barbuda and several other countries to the EU blacklist of tax havens.
However, several Caribbean countries were earlier this year removed from the list, including Barbados and Grenada.
St. Kitts and Nevis’ Foreign Affairs Minister, Mark Brantley confirmed that the government has responded to the blacklisting, describing it as “unfortunate” and has penned a letter seeking clarification on the matter.
“Certainly, these are issues that have reputational risk for our country, and we as a government are concerned about it,” Brantley told local radio station Winn FM.
According to the Minister, they have been engaging in a very robust way with the EU and the other member countries at the diplomatic level to garner a better understanding for the blacklisting.
They are also working to have St. Kitts and Nevis be removed quickly from that list.
“The blacklist purports to be jurisdictions, not cooperative in relation to tax matters. But we feel that St. Kitts and Nevis is in fact cooperative.”
Finance Secretary, Hilary Hazel in a public address also confirmed that the Economic and Financial Affairs Council of the European Union has adopted the conclusion of the list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes – which has St. Kitts and Nevis listed.
Three criteria are used to assess whether a country is adherent: Tax transparency, fair taxation and the implementation of anti-BEPs (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) measures.
The finance secretary explained that in the case of St. Kitts and Nevis, the only area of concern for the European Union is respect of fair taxation, “where a jurisdiction would have no preferential tax measures that could be regarded as harmful…And a jurisdiction should not facilitate offshore structures or arrangements aimed at attracting profits which do not reflect real economic activity in the jurisdiction”.
Brantley noted that the federation remains committed to international standards and transparency in exchange for tax purposes.
“We were rated as largely compliant by the Organization for Economic Cooperation Development “OECD) and we were under review and we are undergoing another review in that regard.”
He stated that they have sent a very detailed letter of commitment to the EU outlining steps that will be taken.
He gave a December 2018 deadline for a legislative framework to be implemented.
