Vexed Bermoothes

The Bermuda Government is complaining that our island was included on the OECD grey list as Bermuda committed to the OECD standards in 2000 and was already negotiating a stack of tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs) to reach the target of 12 when the list was released last month.  The OECD has responded, positively but firmly:

“Bermuda committed in 2000, but there has not been enough actions taken since that time,” Mr. Owens [of the OCED] said. “We’re not interested in just commitment, we want to see tax information exchange agreements agreed and implemented swiftly and effectively.”

While congratulating Bermuda on the progress made, he points out that some countries – like Belgium – who started later in the game were working on 20-30 TIEAs.  In other words, 12 is not the magic number … the bar will be raised … and the expectation is that Bermuda keep on working to sign more agreements.

Mr. Owens said realisation of the OECD’s aims would create a world in which “onshore and offshore financial centres will compete not on the basis of what secrecy they provide, but on what services they provide”.

Funnily enough, Mr. Owens seems to confirm exactly what the UBP’s Grant Gibbon said about our current government; that they are reactive rather than proactive, and very slow on delivering on promises and commitments.  We’ll hold our breath for a retraction of Minister Cox’s rebuke that Gibbons was “Irresponsible, Uninformed and Misguided blah blah blah”.

Secrecy is not a major component of Bermuda’s value add.  We must minimize this distraction while protecting our tax competitiveness – which is entirely legitimate – and other benefits to target industries like insurance.