The Bahamas has signalled its intention to join international efforts to tackle tax evasion and avoidance, by signing the OECD’s multilateral convention on mutual administrative assistance in tax matters and joining the base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) framework, in a move viewed as significant for its financial services industry
The Bahamas is the 116th jurisdiction to sign up to the convention, which provides for all forms of administrative assistance in tax matters: exchange of information on request, spontaneous exchange, automatic exchange, tax examinations abroad, simultaneous tax examinations and assistance in tax collection. It will begin the first such exchanges in 2018.
The Bahamas has also signed the multilateral competent authority agreement, which is a framework agreement specifies the details of what information will be exchanged and when and has been signed by 97 jurisdictions.
Additionally it has become the 110th jurisdiction to participate in the BEPS project, which means it is able to participate in actions such as the automatic exchange of country-by-country reports under action 13 as well as the sharing of rulings under Action 5 of the BEPS project.
Kevin Turnquest, deputy prime minister and minister of finance of the Bahamas, said: ‘Signing the convention is an assertion of the commitment by the Bahamas to protect the integrity of its financial services industry and to effectively implement the OECD's international standards on tax transparency for the automatic exchange of financial account information.
‘The Bahamas is a well known leading international financial centre, as such, we will continue to maintain a well regulated and transparent environment for the provision of international financial services. This week, we have taken major steps to ensure this by also signing the MCAA, and by joining the inclusive framework on BEPS.’
Report by Pat Sweet
