Akash Samaroo
Senior Reporter/Producer
akash.samaroo@cnc3.co.tt
The Finance Minister announced to the Senate that this country is “well on our way” to being removed from all lists of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions, including the European Union’s blacklist.
During the debate on the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) Compliance Bill yesterday, Minister Colm Imbert said this was because of the signing of four important agreements in Paris on November 7.
“We’re advised that the signing of the treaties in Paris has put T&T on the international map, and we are well on our way to getting off of all of these lists of non-cooperative jurisdictions,” Imbert revealed as his government colleagues thumped their desks in support.
Imbert added, “I also sent a representative to the 17th Global Forum plenary meeting, which was held in Paraguay, where a pre-recorded address that I did was shown to 400 delegates from all over the world on T&T’s progress in the international tax community and terms of sharing of tax information. Bilateral meetings were also held with the European Union, the chair of the European Union Code of Conduct, all geared to get us off the EU list of non-compliant organisations.”
Imbert reminded the Upper House, “I signed the multilateral convention on mutual administrative assistance on tax matters, the multilateral competent authority agreement on automatic exchange of financial account information under the common reporting standard for the automatic exchange of financial account information, I signed the addendum to that common reporting standard, and I also signed the multilateral competent authority agreement for the exchange of country-by-country reports.
“And I am advised that there is no requirement for us to sign any more agreements. We now have to do the work to show that we are compliant with all of these agreements that we have signed,” he told the Senate. He also revealed that by December, this country will no longer be seen as a jurisdiction with harmful tax practices.
“We also submitted questionnaires and self-review documents to the Forum for Harmful Tax Practices and we have been advised based on a review of what we have submitted that it is quite likely that we will be reported in December by the Forum for Harmful Tax Practices of no longer being non-compliant; we will be cleared, and our regime will no longer be deemed to have harmful tax practices,” Imbert announced. On September 14, while the Lower House debated the Miscellaneous Provisions (Global Forum) Bill 2024, Imbert said he had a series of deadlines to get T&T off the EU blacklist by year-end.
In February 2023, Imbert said, “Imbert said the main reason for Trinidad and Tobago’s placement on the EU Commission Tax Blacklist was as a result of a non-compliant Global Forum rating under the Exchange of Information on Request (EOIR) and the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) standards.”
The Finance Minister has maintained that coming off the list will make this country more attractive to investors. Meanwhile, staying on the blacklist will see T&T viewed as less legitimate and prone to money laundering, tax evasion, and other financial crimes.
Meanwhile, yesterday’s debate on the FATF Compliance Bill aims to move this country from partially compliant to fully compliant with the Financial Action Task Force before this country is evaluated by the body again in 2025. FATF had previously deemed that this country’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has a limited range of sanctioning power and there were deficiencies in the sanction regime.
The bill aims, among other things, to expand the FIU’s powers. However, Opposition Senator Jayanti Lutchmedial-Ramdial believes the bill may give the FIU too much power.
The senator said the State should not empower the FIU to make demands to access organisations’ books and records that have sensitive information without any judicial oversight.
The bill was considered by a committee of the whole and eventually approved without amendments.
