BVI premier going to France to sign tax agreement

On June 9, the Premier of the British Virgin Islands Ralph O'Neal reported during press conference about his plans to make visit to France, in order to sign Tax Information Exchange Agreement with French government. After the agreement with France will be signed, the number of TIEAs signed by the Territory will be already 11. So, the British Virgin Islands will come closer to the recommendations stated in the report issued by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and concerning tax transparency, and the new international tax standard of 12 tax treaties signed by each jurisdiction, established during the G-20 summit in April.

Ralph O'Neal stated in his comments that, after negotiations with France are complete and the TIEA signed, the BVI will continue to pursue similar agreements with other OECD countries in order to fully comply with the new standards, and be moved from the “grey” to the “white” list of jurisdictions. Some weeks ago, BVI Government signed tax treaties with the group of Nordic countries.

During the same press conference Premier was asked by media on the effects of the global financial crisis of the financial sector of the territory. He answered that the BVI Government is still “keeping a close eye on the Financial Sector”, but he did not say how many companies have been removed from the BVI IBC Register. He explained that the number of companies to be liquidated seems not to increase, but added that liquidation statistics solely cannot give information on how many companies in the industry have been affected.