Minister of Financial Services Ryan Pinder has stated that while the government would never "jeopardize the reputation of the country" in the financial services industry, extensive negotiations are still required to comply with a recent international financial mandate.
Pinder yesterday addressed the release of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) full version of its global standard for automatic exchange of information, which the organization said seeks to increase transparency and put an end to banking secrecy in tax matters.
"We do have some concerns about how it's to be implemented and we've expressed to the OECD as a small developing country some of the areas that may be impractical... We have provided suggestions to the OECD on how best to implement a standard going forward."
Pinder specifically had concerns regarding the standard's provisions with respect to spontaneous exchange of account information and discrepancies regarding document retention within the multilateral convention, which comprises some 150 countries.
"There are some provisions, such as spontaneous exchange of information, that we believe are impossible for us to do with 150 different countries that are signatories, to be able to know what we're supposed to produce," claimed Pinder.
These remarks echoed Pinder's previous comments made during the 2014 STEP Caribbean Conference in May, where he claimed: "It is impossible for a financial center to be able to have the capacity to identify - for over 100 different tax systems and laws - what might be a transaction for tax avoidance purposes.
"We believe, for example, that this scope should likewise be subject to a bilateral agreement where such transactions are listed, rather than leave it to chance and guessing."
He additionally took issue with a clause within the OECD guidance, which stated that any automatic exchange where the receiving country lacked the proper "legal framework and administrative capacity" to ensure confidentiality was not "appropriate".
However, Pinder acknowledged that the standard was "something that the world globally is moving towards", and he is in ongoing discussions with the financial services industry and the OECD on how to best position The Bahamas moving forward.
"We will never put The Bahamas in a position where it's blacklisted, or any other type of negative implication of noncompliance, but we're also responsible to our industry," stated Pinder.
"We are not jeopardizing the industry and not jeopardizing the reputation of the country... We're not confrontational or belligerent, but we believe we have some very fundamental suggestions in that area."

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