Progress on Exchange of Information in the Caribbean - News - Bahamas Financial Services Board.

The Bahamas want to celebrate:

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development announced today that Anguilla, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Vincent and the Grenadines have become the 23rd, 24th and 25th jurisdictions to move into the category of jurisdictions that are considered to have substantially implemented the standard since April 2009. Since that time almost 370 agreements have been signed or brought up to the internationally agreed tax standard.

During the past week Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Anguilla, an overseas territory of the United Kingdom, have signed a total of 14 tax information exchange agreements. These signings bring the total number of agreements signed by each jurisdiction to at least 12 that meet the internationally agreed tax standard.

St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Vincent and the Grenadines today signed agreements with Faroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. These agreements add to agreements St. Kitts and Nevis had already signed with Australia, Monaco, The Netherlands, The Netherlands Antilles, Aruba, United Kingdom, Denmark, Belgium, New Zealand and Liechtenstein, bringing their total to 16 agreements. St. Vincent and the Grenadines has now signed 16 agreements that meet the standard, including its existing agreements with Australia, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, Aruba, Liechtenstein, Belgium, Ireland, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

Oh come on, let's take this seriously. Is anyone really saying St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Greenland or St. Kitts and Nevis and The Netherlands Antilles TIEAs really contribute in any way to financial transparency.

It's time for the OECD to draw a halt to this farce of claiming compliance on the basis of such l agreements which they know, and everyone else knows, have no substance at all.