The age of companies being able to keep details of their financial dealings secret is coming to an end.
Prominent lawyer and philanthropist Sir Trevor Carmichael issued this warning yesterday when the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Barbados held its annual international business update meeting at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.
“What is clearly the case is that we are in for a lovely, lovely, cozy sharing of information and nothing that we do financially in the future will ever really be secret,” he said from the floor.
Sir Trevor was responding to a presentation by businesswoman Glenna Smith of Smith Compliance Consulting Inc., who said the United States Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) regulations committed business and financial centres to a substantial exchange of information.
FATCA requires foreign financial institutions (FFIs) to report to the Inland Revenue Service (IRS) about financial accounts held by US taxpayers, and Smith said this could become a worldwide move between developed nations. (TY)
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