BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE Federation is much closer to being removed from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) grey list after the signing of two Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs) in the last month.
Last week, information emanating or the Communications Unit in the Office of the Prime Minister (CUOPM) indicated that the Federation had reached agreements with New Zealand and with the Municipality of Liechtenstein.
On December 11, St. Kitts and Nevis’ Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Dr. Izben Williams signed on behalf of the Federation, while Liechtenstein Ambassador to the United States, Her Excellency Claudia Fritsche signed on behalf of the European municipality.
The TIEA with New Zealand was signed in Washington D.C. in mid-November. H.E. Ambassador Williams signed the agreement on behalf of the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis while New Zealand Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Roy Ferguson signed on behalf his country.
Following the April 2 G20 Summit in London, global leaders agreed to introduce sanctions on “secretive” tax havens around the world, resulting in the OECD publishing a list of 30 countries that have committed to their tax standard, but have not substantially implemented it.
St. Kitts-Nevis was named among the non-compliant countries on the list, while only two Caribbean islands, Barbados and the US Virgin Islands, were seen by the OECD as substantially implementing the standards. High-ranking government officials were displeased with the classification, calling the move “unjust”.
Since then, St. Kitts-Nevis has made a swift move to reach an agreement with Monaco, The Netherlands, The Netherlands Antilles, Aruba and Denmark. The latest TIEAs with New Zealand and Liechtenstein bring to seven the total number of signed agreements, leaving only four more agreements needed for the nation to be removed from the OECD grey list.
According to the CUOPM press statement, “The Federation has already initialled 10 other agreements - with the six Nordic countries which accounts for 6 agreements – the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia and is waiting for dates for the signing of these agreements to be given to the Federation by these countries.”
TIEAs allow the signing parties to request tax information from each other for the purposes of tax investigations. Information may include banking data and information on ownership of companies and trusts.
