Netherlands Antilles Set To Conclude Two TIEAs

by Phillip Morton, Investors Offshore.com

21 August 2009

The Netherlands Antilles has announced that, on August 30 in Vancouver, and September 1 in Los Cabos, it will conclude agreements to exchange information with the tax authorities of Canada and Mexico in criminal and civil tax matters.

The agreement between Canada and the Netherlands Antilles was initialed in June 2008, while the agreement with Mexico was initialed in November 2007. The countries have completed their individual protocols, and in light of the OECD’s initiative on transparency and information exchange have agreed to bring the documents into force. Once the two agreements are signed, it will increase the Netherlands Antilles’ tally of such agreements to six, having already concluded agreements with Spain, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.

In June, Netherlands Antilles’ State Secretary, Alex Rosaria, confirmed the jurisdiction's commitment to the OECD’s initiative to increase tax transparency globally, which requires territories that the organization deemed non-compliant in April 2009 to conclude at least 12 OECD model tax information exchange agreements.

In his June statement, Rosaria said that the jurisdiction would strive to conclude 16 agreements, including with Canada, Mexico, Denmark, Finland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Sweden, and Iceland, as well as updating existing double taxation treaties with Jamaica and Norway to contain information exchange provisions. Rosaria also disclosed that the territory would seek to conclude agreements with France, Italy, and Germany before end-2009.

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