David Thompson is urging the United States incoming Barak Obama administration not to pursue policies that would damage the country’s vital offshore financial services sector.
Thompson told a large audience of business executives and government officials in Miami that proposed legislation in the US Congress designed to force US firms to pay more taxes would hurt the Caribbean’s viable and clean offshore financial centers and prove counter-productive.
He told guests at a dinner of the annual Miami Conferenceon the Caribbean: “I urge the President-elect and the Democratic Congress to take another look at the reactionary proposals being made against the use of offshore financial centres and to recognise that the pursuit of financial services business in the Caribbean is a legitimate activity which is mutually beneficial to both the Caribbean and the United States of America.”
The Prime Minister said: “Caribbean governments have taken decisive measures to guard against money laundering, terrorist financing and trans-national crimes.
“We cooperate fully with the Financial Action Task Force and are committed to maintaining jurisdictions of quality and integrity. Our efforts merit recognition and support, not misrepresentation in the legislature of this country.”
“Many countries are involved in the export of a variety of different services, using various incentive regimes as in the case of Delaware and Vermont.
Share of taxes
“Increased United States pre-occupation to ensure that United States taxpayers pay their fair share of taxes to cover the costs of government engineered bailout and to fund two wars should not find expressionin legislative bills that name and shame,” Thompson said.
By focusing attention on a bill before the United States Senate that targets a host of Caribbean and Pacific countries by name and would virtually put United States companies off limits to the offshore financial services centers in those jurisdictions, Thompson took direct aim at Obama, a co-sponsor of the proposed legislation.
During the United Statespresidential campaign Obama vowedto go after United States firms that do businessin such countries in order to force them to pay more taxes.
“It has been proven that such methodologies which have long been abandoned by progressive jurisdictions in favour of bilateral cooperation do more to disadvantage the economies of the region than to bring discipline to the United States or other taxpayers,” Thompson argued.
“Rather than target and destabilise the Caribbean economies, the government and Congress should consider us a special case and work with us to increase cross-border cooperation,” Thompson said
Source: Nation News
