No Blacklisting for Turks and Caicos Islands

#Providenciales, June 8, 2018 – Turks and Caicos – Turks and Caicos Islands is a small developing country with its many challenges but have to meet all the international transparency and compliancy standards in the area of international taxation and reporting in the same manner applicable to developed jurisdictions. Good governance, fiscal stability, tax transparency and effective legislations are matters of significant importance to assessing compliance with the global financial systems.

The European Union is one of the many  organizations on an annual basis publishing a list of Non-cooperative jurisdictions (Blacklist) that fails to meet their tax transparency rules and standards.  Turks and Caicos Islands was one of the 8 jurisdictions placed on a gray list, partly as a result of the 2017 storms. The Hon. Premier along with several senior Government Officials with private sector partnership engaged the EU Code of Conduct Group in February 2018 in Brussels to start the dialogue and conversation of matters of mutual interest. The dialogue with the EU Code of Conduct Group responsible for the compilation of the Non-cooperate list continued with the Ministry of Finance, Exchange of Information Unit, Attorney General Chambers, Financial Services Commission and Private Sector Representative and led to a Commitment Letter to examine the impact of proposed changes to TCI business models, particularly in the Financial Services sector.

Turks and Caicos Islands Government was able to demonstrate to the EU Code of Conduct Group significant legal and operational reforms implemented in the area of tax transparency and reporting. The three main criteria identified by the Code of Conduct Group: Tax Transparency, Fair Taxation and Anti-BEPS measures saw TCI as participatory and compliant.

The Chair of the Code of Conduct Group communicated with the Hon. Premier by email on June 7^th, 2018 indicating that Turks and Caicos Islands will not be included in the 2018 List of Non-cooperative Jurisdictions.

As Premier of the Turks and Caicos Islands, I want to thank and recognized the hard work of the Ministry of Finance, Exchange of Information Unit, Attorney General Chambers, Financial Services Commission and the Private Sector who partner with us to achieve this successful outcome. This is just the beginning and there is much more to come by way of monitoring, therefore you continued cooperation is welcome and appreciated.

Release:

Hon Sharlene L Cartwright Robinson

Premier & Minister of Finance

The Turks and Caicos Islands