It's possible that you have not read the detail of the Cayman Island's budget for 2008-09. But if you had you'd learn quite a lot from page 694 (they don't do budgets by halves in Cayman). It says that Cayman's Financial Intelligence Services that they will undertake the following activities:
Let's get this right:
1) 200 to 250 suspicious activity reports will be submitted;
2) About 40 applications for overseas assistance will be received;
3) And about another 80 will be received from other authorities.
There are two obvious responses:
1) If that's all the reports that are made by the local financial community someone somewhere is turning a massive blind eye to an enormous amount of tax evasion, let alone money laundering and fraud.
2) If 120 or so requests for data in a year is considered 'effective information exchange then I'm French. Note also that the fact that these will be received does not mean that information will be supplied - the performance requirement is only that a response is sent - not that data is sent with it.
Now we have a real insight into what these places mean when they talk about offering full cooperation to other authorities - it's a joke.
PS Please don't blame the other authorities for not asking: Cayman has made sure it is incredibly difficult for them to do so by basically requiring them to have all the evidence they are requesting before they can ask for confirmation that it is correct - again, a deliberate obstacle to anything approaching real information exchange. .
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Only 2 comments here,
1) as from your title “information exchange”, how many times did say the US supply information to Cayman, my guess alot less than 120. and don’t blame the Cayman authorities for not asking, the US has made sure it is incredibly difficult for them to do so .
2) Maybe I’m getting this wrong but this is the same treaty the US signed? so if as your saying Cayman has made it so difficult to request information then:
the US signed an agreement they didnt bother to look at, or
the the US agreed to the conditions in the TIA with Cayman and were happy with them. After why else would they sign were Cayman refusing for rumcake to be shipped to the US if they didn’t sign in some of those “economic sanctions’ you love to go on about?
mmmm
and once again, isn’t the fact that you can readily access all this information a clear sign of Cayman’s openess
While I know you and the US would happily like to look into anyones business, they hae to have proof like they would if they needed to obtain a search warrent or an arrest warrent in their own jurisdictions.
After all why should any jurisdiction provide confidential information when there is no evidence of wrong doing?
Creg
I support your second point fully. The TIEA does not provide for automatic or pro-active exchange of information. None of them do. They are agreements to provide specific information upon request. Whether that is really what the US wanted is irrelevant. Both parties must have accepted the provisions of the agreement. If not then they should not have agreed to sign it. The US must have accepted those terms. In fact, rightly or wrongly,if the cayman authorities were to provide more information than is necessary within the scope of the agreement then they would be exposed for data protection breaches or worse under cayman’s strict confidentiality laws !
Your first point isn’t really valid as there are no taxes in Cayman. It is hard to envisage any situation whereby the cayman authorities could ever require US information to help with a Cayman tax issue ! By definition that can only be one-sided. The position is not the same in several other offshore centres. For example Guernsey and Jersey residents pay local income tax at 20 per cent and so it is quite feasible for them to seek US information where a CI resident has US income which affects a CI tax return.
Creg
How do you know there is no wrong doing?
Richard
I didn’t say there was no wrong doing, I said “why should any jurisdiction provide confidential information when there is no evidence of wrong doing?”
Creg
How would we know? You deny us the chance to find out
That’s the whole issue at stake
Richard
[…] exchange agreement now means you are fully committed to information exchange (which is absurd – as I’ve shown, Cayman expects to exchange no more than 120 time this year). But all that shows is that these […]
[…] exchange agreement now means you are fully committed to information exchange (which is absurd – as I’ve shown, Cayman expects to exchange no more than 120 time this year). But all that shows is that these […]