Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Colm Im­bert says T&T is com­mit­ted to tax trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty as well as the ex­change of tax in­for­ma­tion with 148 ju­ris­dic­tions around the globe.

He made the point in re­marks via video pre­sen­ta­tion at the 17th Glob­al Fo­rum ple­nary meet­ing in Asun­ción, Paraguay on No­vem­ber 26 to 28. The video was post­ed on the web­site of the Min­istry of Fi­nance yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing on the 360-de­gree au­to­mat­ic ex­change of fi­nan­cial ac­count in­for­ma­tion, Im­bert said T&T had made sig­nif­i­cant strides in tax trans­paren­cy and in its un­wa­ver­ing com­mitt­ment to the in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards that strength­en the glob­al fight against tax eva­sion and il­lic­it fi­nan­cial flows.

He said T&T's jour­ney has been marked by fo­cused ef­forts and an en­dur­ing part­ner­ship with the Glob­al Fo­rum sec­re­tari­at, whose ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing pro­grammes have been in­valu­able in T&T's pro­gres­sion.

"The au­to­mat­ic ex­change of fi­nan­cial ac­count in­for­ma­tion has been in­stru­men­tal in mod­ernising our tax frame­work, strenghen­ing our ca­pac­i­ty to com­bat tax eva­sion and en­sur­ing a more trans­par­ent fi­nan­cial sys­tem," said Im­bert.

He said T&T is al­so un­der­go­ing its sec­ond-round peer re­view on trans­paren­cy and ex­change of in­for­ma­tion on re­quest. The min­is­ter said T&T con­tin­ues to im­prove on key com­po­nents such as ben­e­fi­cial own­er­ship frame­works.

"These en­hance­ments, not on­ly align with our oblig­a­tions, but are al­so cru­cial for Trinidad and To­ba­go as a sov­er­eign na­tion. This progress strength­ens our fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions' ac­count­abil­i­ty, thanks to en­hanced cus­tomer due dili­gence re­quire­ments and a rig­or­ous ap­proach in the su­per­vi­sion of the fi­nan­cial sec­tor," said Im­bert.

"Such mea­sures en­sure the com­pli­ance and so­lid­i­ty of our fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and re­in­force the syn­er­gies be­tween the ex­change of in­for­ma­tion on re­quest and au­to­mat­ic ex­change of fi­nan­cial ac­count in­for­ma­tion stan­dards for our own do­mes­tic in­ter­est," he added.

Im­bert said his sign­ing of the Mul­ti­lat­er­al Con­ven­tion on Mu­tu­al Ad­min­is­tra­tive As­sis­tance on Tax Mat­ters at the head­quar­ters of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Eco­nom­ic Co-op­er­a­tion and De­vel­op­ment in Paris on No­vem­ber 7 was a dis­tinct ho­n­our.

"This his­toric step places Trinidad and To­ba­go with­in the world's most com­pre­hen­sive net­work for tax co­op­er­a­tion, en­abling ex­change of in­for­ma­tion with 148 ju­ris­dic­tions, in­clud­ing ma­jor fi­nan­cial hubs. This mile­stone re­flects our ded­i­ca­tion to cre­at­ing an en­vi­ron­ment that fos­ters trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and trust."

The ple­nary meet­ing brought to­geth­er high-lev­el rep­re­sen­ta­tives from ju­ris­dic­tions, in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions, civ­il so­ci­ety, and acad­e­mia.

This di­verse par­tic­i­pa­tion en­riched the dis­cus­sions and pre­sent­ed var­i­ous per­spec­tives on ex­ist­ing and emerg­ing is­sues re­lat­ed to in­ter­na­tion­al tax co­op­er­a­tion and ex­change of in­for­ma­tion, ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Fi­nance.