The Bahamas’ Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Attorney General, Brent Symonette, has presented an amendment to the Criminal Justice (International Cooperation) Act, 2000 in parliament that will allow other countries' tax authorities to gain access to Bahamian tax records in cases that relate exclusively to tax crimes.
Under the 2000 Act, the Bahamas provides assistance in criminal matters to countries with which it does not have a treaty to provide mutual legal assistance. The Bahamas currently has mutual legal assistance treaties with the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, under the Mutual Legal Assistance (Criminal Matters) Act, Chapter 98.
The amendment, which was adopted by parliament on October 15, will allow the Bahamas to exchange tax information under OECD model treaties with third countries, allowing it to enter into further tax information exchange agreements to gain a place on the OECD "white list" of territories that have substantially implemented the internationally agreed standard.
Under the Act, the Attorney General is designated as the authority to receive requests, which emanate from a court or tribunal exercising criminal jurisdiction, or a prosecuting authority, or any other authority which appears to him to have the function of making requests of this nature.
The Act stipulates that the court, tribunal or authority should ensure that an offence under the law of its country has been committed or that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that an offence has been committed before submitting information to aid in the investigation of a tax crime by a third country’s authority.
“This change to the law of the Bahamas is in line with prevailing international standards,” Symonette explained. “There has been pressure from international organizations, namely the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), for offshore countries to increase the transparency in tax structures, facilitate requests for information on tax matters, and assist countries in tax enforcement initiatives.”
“The Bahamas has always held in the highest regard the international legal principles of comity and cooperation. Thus, the Bahamas is now seeking to extend the scope of the Criminal Justice (International Cooperation) Act, to provide for assistance to be granted to foreign countries in tax matters.”
In March 2002, the Bahamas made a commitment to improve the transparency of its tax and regulatory systems and to establish effective exchange of information for tax matters with the OECD. The Bahamas currently has three tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs), with the United States, Monaco and San Marino. It must conclude 12 TIEAs before being recognized as a territory that has substantially implemented the OECD standard.
“The amendment to the Criminal Justice (International Cooperation) Act to remove the restriction of the Bahamas not being able to provide assistance in requests relating to criminal tax fiscal matters is a necessary step to achieving the goal of effective exchange of information in tax matters,” Symonette said. “The Government is committed to implementing the standards of transparency and information exchange in tax matters as developed by the OECD, and providing the fullest measure of cooperation in requests relating to tax matters.”
In another announcement this week, the Bahamian Prime Minister, Hubert Ingraham, said that the territory had concluded technical agreements with eight additional countries. He added: “We expect to be in a position to begin signing TIEAs during the period beginning the last week in [October] leading up toward the end of this year."
“We are not yet in a position to publicly disclose the names of the countries that we have concluded technical agreements with because they too, have their own internal processes that they must go through in order to conclude formal TIEAs," he concluded.
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