The Tribune

By NATARIO

McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Financial Services Board’s  (BFSB) chief executive said yesterday that Washington D. C’s pending ‘tax haven’ blacklist, featuring the Bahamas and 16 other Caribbean nations, “bears little resemblance to reality”.

Aliya Allen said the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has already branded lists such as the one drawn up by the District of Columbia (the city, not the federal government), as unfair.

The DC Budget Support Act which, as it covers Washington D. C, has to be approved by the US federal Congress, lists 39 nations and territories, of

which 17 are in the Caribbean, as ‘tax havens’ with no effective or a nominal income tax; laws and

practices that prevent the exchange of tax

information with other governments; and a lack of transparency.

“We were aware of the legislation,” Ms Allen said. “When the OECD assigned its tax compliance ratings to all jurisdictions, the Bahamas was rated ‘compliant’ in eight out of 10 categories  and ‘largely compliant’ in the remaining two. 

“Interestingly enough, the US shares this exact rating, compliant in the same categories and largely compliant in the others.”

She added: “The facts speak for themselves.  The OECD has already, in a highly public fashion, called these kinds of lists ‘unfair’.  The list bears little resemblance to reality.”

Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, the islands formerly constituting the Netherlands Antilles, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, the Turks and Caicos Islands and the US Virgin Islands are all listed.

Former financial services minister, Ryan Pinder, has labelled the ‘blacklisting” as “inconsequential”, while the incumbent, Hope Strachan, said the Bahamas continues to reaffirm that it is a “reputable jurisdiction with an effective legislative, regulatory and operational regime, and we remain open for business”.