France Removes Bermuda From Tax Blacklist
After adding Bermuda to their list of ”uncooperative” tax jurisdictions back in August 2013, the Government of France has confirmed that they will remove Bermuda from the list in 2014.
Minister of Finance Bob Richards said that the French Ministry of Finance has informed the French Association of Financial Management [AFG] that “Jersey and Bermuda have been informed that they will be removed from the list for 2014, which means that the retaliation measures provided for by law will not be applied.”
Minister Richards offered his gratitude to French officials for facilitating the meeting earlier this year between French and Bermudian Ministry of Finance officials, adding that officials from Bermuda are “pleased that Bermuda has now been delisted”.
Minister Richards said: “I was impressed with the goodwill shown by French officials in working with Bermuda officials to resolve the matter before the end of the year.
“We were confident that any entry on France’s list would be very short-lived as Bermuda is globally recognised as complying with the highest international standards on tax transparency and compliance.”
Minister Richards added, “I wish to thank His Excellency the Governor of Bermuda and British Officials including the Chancellor of the Exchequer in London who gave us support behind the scenes.”
Yesterday Bermuda signed the US FATCA Intergovernmental Agreement to assist the US to fight against tax evasion, and Bermuda now has over 60 tax transparency agreements when counting both bilateral and multilateral agreement partners.
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Articles that link to this one:
- ‘Imperative’ Bermuda Have Contacts With France | Bernews.com | June 27, 2014
Finally this matter is put to rest like we had anything to really worry about in the first place, the Hon. Paula Cox already had enough agreements signed before leaving office to protect our interest in the first place.
Duane, alot of work went into this….you should be thanking those that worked to ensure we were taken off.
I totally agree with you but what exactly does this mean to us, when we see the likes of the signing of the agreement with the U.S also, does this means we are going to see the likes or more international business now flocking back this way, I hardly think so.
Do you know who FATCA affects?
I don’t mean that confrontationally.
finally, I can eat French fries again. Was holding off on the “finance fries” and almost dumped my case of Bordeaux into the gutter.
I like that (French Fries)at least now there wont be a shortage coming to us from France.
LOL now make that BBC and the charity guy apologize.
LOL
Good luck with that!!
………..sorry, all the clients already moved their accounts and assets to other jurisdictions ahead of 31 December 2011………….try getting them back Minister of Finance – now that would be a story
Here’s another point of view:
http://bermudaindependent.wordpress.com/2013/12/20/88/
Considering we signed a Tax Information Exchange Agreement(TIEA) with France back in 8 October 2009 & also considering the whole purpose of this agreement is to exchange of information on tax matters. Now add to the fact that there is no record of any withholding of any requested information on our part, we shouldn’t of been put on the list in the first place.
I think it’s time Bermuda needs to get tough & start to take all accusers to task by charging them with slender if they can’t back their accusations with solid verified facts. Otherwise we will always be on the tip of any countries, news reported or politicians tongue whenever they intend to make any reference to the term tax heaven. We have been put on black lists, grey lists & every other negative list in this regard for many years. True we don’t directly tax as heavily as other countries but we pay that price in the cost of living due to the indirect form of taxation. The funny thing is that one of our longest & biggest accusers (the U.S.) was fundamentally initially formed in part to to be a “Tax Heaven” themselves.