Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Fred Mitchell has again rejected the position taken by the developed world in connection with how citizens of developed countries interact with the financial services offered by The Bahamas and other Caribbean states, particularly in the area of taxes.
Mitchell said these countries frame the argument in terms of "moral equivalency".
"They argue that even though the laws exist on the protection of privacy and of private property without illegal seizure by the state, even though the countries in the region are independent and free to do as they wish, the fact that our countries are bankers for those seeking to take advantage of tax competition is somehow immoral because it robs the developed world of legitimate revenue," he said.
However, Mitchell outright rejected that argument.
"This is not true. The evidence is that the wealth accumulated offshore goes back to the developed countries, and therefore these offshore sectors are of benefit to the developed world," he said.
As a counterargument Mitchell said that if Caribbean societies collapsed because of over-regulation, "then the result of the destruction of millions of families would be the greater moral wrong".
In September, the OECD attacked The Bahamas by way of an unattributed Economist article, which blasted The Bahamas as a "holdout" and sought to smear the jurisdiction as a "tax haven of long standing". The Ministry of Financial Services said the attack was predicated on an obvious OECD preference for the multilateral approach to automatic exchange of information (AEIO).
"In this country and across the region, it is the view that the OECD is intent on destroying financial services as a sector in this country, even as the developed world itself adopts the same model of financial services in special enclaves within their own borders," Mitchell said.
While speaking at the Bahamas' Diplomatic Week Opening Ceremony Mitchell said, "The attacks on The Bahamas and the CARICOM region are inaccurate and unfair."
Mitchell asserted that neither The Bahamas, nor any other CARICOM country, shields anyone involved in unlawful behavior.
Xian Smith, Guardian Business Reporter
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