Bermudan Minister of Finance Paula Cox announced on July 27 the signing of a tax information exchange agreement (TIEA) with Ireland. The TIEA was signed at the Irish Department of Finance by Minister Cox and Irish Minister of Finance, Brian Lenihan.
Following the signing, Minister Cox said she was delighted to be in Dublin to sign the agreement with Ireland and thanked Minister Lenihan for making every effort to sign with Bermuda so quickly, especially given the importance that the OECD attaches to the number of TIEAs signed by each country.
“This marks Bermuda’s 14th signed TIEA and demonstrates, once again, that we are far from complacent about our current standing on the OECD white list, nor about reaching the internationally agreed standard of 12 signed TIEAs set at the April 2 meeting of the G20, or the original OECD standard of 12 signed TIEAs with members of the OECD which we undertook to complete prior to the 2009 Global Forum scheduled to meet in Mexico on September 1, 2009. I am extremely pleased to note that prior to this important forum, Bermuda adheres to both versions of the OECD standard.”
Minister Cox said that Bermuda was the first country to ascend from the grey list to the white list, a feat now acknowledged by global observers. “Now Bermuda may claim another first – we are the first of the British Overseas Territories to join the three Channel Islands – our constitutional cousins - in having met the G20 standard as well as the original OECD standard.”
“We pledged to support the OECD initiative as early as 2000 and participated on the committee that penned the OECD Model TIEA of 2002. We have, in so many ways, worked assiduously to strengthen worldwide tax cooperation," she noted.
“Our commitment to the principles of fair tax competition and international cooperation in tax matters extends back to 1988 when Bermuda signed a TIEA with its largest trading partner, the United States of America.”
In addition to its agreements with the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, the Nordic Group, the Netherlands, Germany and Ireland, Bermuda has concluded negotiations with a number of other countries with whom signing dates are being arranged for the very near future as they conclude their ratification processes.
“The government of Bermuda is involved in several negotiations at present and is closing in on its goal to have TIEAs in place with all G7 countries and other important international trading and commercial partners. Most importantly, Bermuda continues to not only meet but exceed standards set by the OECD Global Forum's annual assessments for effective exchange of information after one has signed a tax information exchange agreement, and we are confident that we have the legislative framework in place to well-position ourselves for the forthcoming model peer review process as our TIEA partners have publicly commended Bermuda on how effectively we exchange information,” Minister Cox concluded. .
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