Barbados Working On Tax Transparency

by Amanda Banks, Tax-News.com, London

01 May 2012

Barbados's Minister responsible for International Business, George Hutson has denied recent claims from the island's business association that the government has failed to do enough to prove to the OECD that it has implemented the reforms necessary to exchange tax information in line with international standards.

The minister clarified on November 7 that the government has "met all deadlines stipulated". He admitted that in the Global Peer Review Group report of January 2011, two elements of Barbados's frameworks for the exchange of tax information were seen lacking, but that four other areas were confirmed to be in place.

Hutson said Barbados's placement in the group of countries which had not progressed to a Phase Two review was as a result of tax agreements that had been signed and ratified by Barbados but had not yet been ratified by the co-signatory country, which meant that Barbados was at that stage unable to properly be assessed on its implementation of the international standards.

The Minister explained that Phase One of the review is an assessment of the country's legislative and regulatory framework while Phase Two assessments are an analysis of information exchange frameworks in practice.

“Barbados has always positioned itself as a jurisdiction interested in, and capable of, exchanging tax information with its treaty partners. Barbados is, therefore, pleased that the Global Forum will soon test the ability of jurisdictions to exchange tax information,” Hutson stated.

“To date, Barbados…has in force 21 double taxation treaties with major countries and trading partners including the US, Canada, UK and China, as well as Panama, Luxembourg and Spain.”

Agreements between Barbados and Ghana, and Barbados and Portugal are currently awaiting ratification. Agreements with Vietnam and Belgium are yet to be signed.

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