Hashtag: #WashingtonDC
Bermuda Firms Benefit From US Program
Twenty insurance companies in Bermuda, Japan, Switzerland, Australia, Canada and the US were paid $7.1 billion in US taxpayer funds from 2007 to 2011 to sell American farmers crop insurance policies, an Environmental Working Group [EWG] analysis shows. The EWG is an American environmental organization which specialises in research and advocacy in the... Read more of this article
Think Tank: ‘Onshoring’ Reinsurance
The Washington DC office of the Heartland Institute think tank yesterday [Mar.13] hosted a major symposium on “onshoring” catastrophe reinsurance reserves now held in off-shore business domiciles including Bermuda. The Illinois-based Heartland Institute has been part of ongoing efforts to transform the District of Columbia into “Bermuda... Read more of this article
Financial Centres ‘Will Tremble Before IRS’
An Irish economics lecturer says his country, Bermuda, the Netherlands and other “tax havens” which allow multinationals corporations to shift profits through their financial systems will almost certainly be targeted if US President Barack Obama wins re-election in November. Writing in the “Irish Independent” today [Mar.6],... Read more of this article
White House: ‘Stop Rewarding Tax Havens’
The Obama administration today [Feb.22] took aim at so-called corporate tax havens including Bermuda in a proposed overhaul of the US corporate tax system which would lower the tax rate for companies and try to encourage job creation in the United States. In a newly released report, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner expressed disdain for the current... Read more of this article
‘Strenuous Objection’ To Obama Proposal
Revived measures in President Obama’s 2013 budget to forbid tax deductions for reinsurance premiums ceded to foreign-based affiliates including those operating in Bermuda has once again divided American industry groups. Heavyweight domestic US insurers such as W.R. Berkley and Liberty Mutual are pleased with the proposal but other trade groups... Read more of this article
Ex-CIA Director On Island’s Role
A former US Central Intelligence Agency director is looking forward to coming to Bermuda this week to address an international business forum, saying the island has a significant role to play in preserving economic stability during these unsettled times. James R. Woolsey [pictured] — who served as CIA director under President Bill Clinton —... Read more of this article
Think Tank On Corporate Profit Shifting
A US corporate minimum tax would directly combat profit shifting to offshore financial centres like Bermuda and lessen the American tax code’s bias toward foreign investment, says a highly influential Washington DC think tank. In a major briefing paper written for the Centre for American Progress, the advocacy group’s Director of Fiscal Reform... Read more of this article
‘US State Department Is No Trump’
An award-winning American columist says US State Department officials should never consider second careers in real estate now that “Chelston” — former residence of America’s Consul General in Bermuda — is back on the market for four times what Washington bureaucrats made when they sold the beachfront property. In his “Inside... Read more of this article
Romney On ‘Trivial Discrepancies’
Some investments listed in Mitt and Ann Romney’s 2010 tax returns — including the Bermuda-based Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors Ltd. and other funds located overseas — were not explicitly disclosed in the personal financial statement the Republican presidential hopeful filed in August as part of his White House bid. The “Los Angeles... Read more of this article
Romney Had Bermuda Accounts
GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney reported financial accounts in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands according to a summary of his 2010 tax form made public by his campaign today [Jan. 24]. Under increasing pressure from his rivals in the Republican field to provide details of his US federal tax returns, Mr. Romney revealed he had paid a total of $6.2... Read more of this article
‘Romney’s Bermuda Tax Holiday’
With prohibitive GOP Presidential favourite Mitt Romney’s legal use of off-shore domiciles including Bermuda for tax avoidance now gaining traction as a campaign issue, voters shouldn’t be questioning the candidate’s lack of political judgement or perceived remoteness from the average recession-battered American. Instead they should... Read more of this article
ABIR Targets Protectionist Policies
The Association of Bermuda Insurers & Reinsurers is warning that protectionist policies by governments on global reinsurers will ultimately backfire because of the important role global risk distribution via reinsurance plays, industry journal “Property Casualty 360″ reported yesterday [Jan.17]. Citing a recent ABIR statement on Brazil’s protectionist... Read more of this article
