Chief Minister Allan Bell MHK has welcomed a letter from David Cameron calling on all Britain’s Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories to continue working with the United Kingdom on tax transparency.
 
In his letter, issued ahead of next month’s G8 summit which will be hosted by the UK, the Prime Minister says he respects the right of jurisdictions to have lower tax, but this is only sustainable if tax owed is actually paid. In terms of rules to enforce payment the UK is seeking ‘a level playing field right across the world’, with the goal of a global standard in tax transparency.
 
Mr Cameron also calls for improvement in the quality and accuracy of information exchanged between countries, to identify the beneficial ownership of companies. The Isle of Man already has a legal regime in place to ensure that this information is available to the authorities.
 
The Chief Minister commented: ‘As far as the Isle of Man is concerned Mr Cameron is pushing at an open door. We are well ahead with this agenda and fully support the level playing field objective as a fairer and more effective solution for governments and business.’
 
‘As I said in a letter to the Prime Minister at the beginning of this month, having a single global compliance standard will lead to far greater tax transparency while minimising costs for business and government.’
 
Mr Bell continued: ‘In that same letter I explained that establishing the ultimate beneficial ownership behind all account and business relationships conducted by financial intermediaries is a mandatory legal requirement here, backed by onsite regulatory supervision in order to ensure compliance.
 
‘The Isle of Man is one of the few countries in the world to have such a regime on beneficial ownership, and we will be happy to share our experience in this regard.’ 
 
The Chief Minister noted that Mr Cameron’s letter also sought commitment to the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Assistance in Tax Matters, which aims to include poor developing countries within tax information exchange networks.
 
Mr Bell said the Island was already on record as seriously considering signing up to the Convention, and was looking at ways to progress this. He added that the Isle of Man was involved with developing countries through its international development work and its pioneering Small Countries Financial Management Programme, in which the Island shares its financial expertise with small governments around the world.