OECD places Antigua, other Caribbean countries with CIP in a special category

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The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has listed Antigua and a number of other Caribbean countries with Citizenship by Investment Programs saying they threaten international efforts to combat tax evasion.

The OECD listed 21 jurisdictions in a report released on Tuesday after it said it had analyzed over 100 Citizenship By Investment (CBI)/Residency By Investment (RBI) schemes.

The Caribbean countries listed are Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Dominica, Grenada, St Lucia, and St Kitts and Nevis,

The Paris-based organization said the schemes from these countries, and others listed, potentially pose a high risk to the integrity of the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS).

The report said that a second citizenship can be potentially misused to hide assets abroad.

“While residence and citizenship by investment (CBI/RBI) schemes allow individuals to obtain citizenship or residence rights through local investments or against a flat fee for perfectly legitimate reasons, they can also be potentially misused to hide their assets offshore by escaping reporting under the OECD/G20 Common Reporting Standard (CRS),” the report stated. “In particular, Identity Cards and other documentation obtained through CBI/RBI schemes can potentially be misused abuse to misrepresent an individual’s jurisdiction(s) of tax residence and to endanger the proper operation of the CRS due diligence procedures.”

The report went to say that “potentially high-risk CBI/RBI schemes are those that give access to a low personal income tax rate on offshore financial assets and do not require an individual to spend a significant amount of time in the location offering the scheme.”

The CRS is the flagship initiative of the OECD and is a framework for countries to cooperate in the fight against tax evasion by sharing information. It allows for details of bank accounts an individual might hold abroad to be sent to their home tax office.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. SEEING IS NOT BELIEVING….
    CIP is an accepted term meant to deceive the citizenry. It is used when a new world country is bankrupt and goes public to raise capital to fund it’s estimates.

    This CIP scheme is outside of the SOP for new world countries. It is unregulated.

    Blacklisting is a method used to bring countries operating outside the SOP back under control. (Disobedient child)

    There is nothing wrong with the CIP program. The problem lies with how the new money was/is underutilized and not invested and reinvested to ensure longevity of the funds.

  2. Reminding. No. …

    My experience as a 49 year Antiguan resident and citizen is that citizen status does not determine your tax jurisdiction in and of itself. And US and U.K. make their own determinations.

  3. What is the truth?
    Last night, I think i heard ABS TV bigging up our CIp/CUI programme while pointing out St. Lucia’s negative listing.!
    How now this morning I am hearing that Antigua is also in the same group as St.Lucia?
    Wha really a gu on? Trying to fool us ABS?

Comments are closed.