Speaking at a news conference hosted by the Barbados Investment and Development
Corporation (BIDC) this week, PricewaterhouseCoopers US International Tax Services
partner, Paul Tadros warned of the challenges ahead for the jurisdiction's finance
centre.
Although Barbados has managed to secure removal from the OECD's harmful tax
practices list, Mr Tadros warned that the multilateral organisation has resorted
to stealth in order to achieve its ends:
'What the OECD could not do directly it is actually going through the back
door to achieve it simply by having its members change their laws,' he told
reporters, pointing to recent legislative changes in countries such as Chile,
Mexico, Argentina and Brazil which are likely to severely limit transactions
which take place with perceived tax havens, such as Barbados.
He went on to add that although the country had been 'lucky' to have its name
removed from the United States' Homeland Security Bill, 'every single state
in the US' considers Barbados to be a tax haven.
However, he stressed that although there will be obstacles to overcome in terms
of the international community's perception of Barbados, infrastructure improvements
and increased innovation will lead the jurisdiction to success:
'The way it can be achieved is by all participants in Barbados actually participating
and coming up with innovations,' he told the press conference, adding that:
'Your competition is not the Cayman Islands, it's not Bermuda, it's not [the]
Bahamas, it's places like Mauritius, Hungary, Spain, Luxembourg, Switzerland -
the list goes on.'