CARIBBEAN: Trinidad and Tobago joins Multilateral Convention to tackle tax evasion and avoidance

Today, at the OECD Headquarters in Paris, the Hon Colm Imbert MP, Minister of Finance of Trinidad and Tobago signed the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (the Convention), bringing the total number of jurisdictions that participate in the Convention to 149.

By today’s signing, Trinidad and Tobago joins the world’s widest reaching international treaty for international tax co-operation and exchange of information and further strengthens the reach of the Convention in the Caribbean. The signing will pave the way for Trinidad and Tobago to engage in the exchange of information with 148 other jurisdictions, including all major financial centres. These exchange relationships will be added to the over 8000 exchange relationships already in place under the Convention.

The Convention enables jurisdictions to engage in a wide range of mutual assistance in tax matters: exchange of information on request, spontaneous exchange, automatic exchange, tax examinations abroad, simultaneous tax examinations and assistance in tax collection. It guarantees extensive safeguards for the protection of taxpayers’ rights.

The Convention is the primary instrument for swift implementation of the Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in Tax Matters (CRS). The CRS – developed by the OECD and G20 countries – enables more than 110 jurisdictions to automatically exchange offshore financial account information. Beyond the exchange of information on request and the automatic exchange pursuant to the Standard, the Convention is also a powerful tool in the fight against illicit financial flows and is a key instrument for the implementation of the transparency standards of the OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project.

It is in this vein, that Trinidad and Tobago today has also signed the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreements for the automatic exchange of information pursuant to the CRS and on Country-by-Country (CbC) Reports, the CRS MCAA and the CbC MCAA.

View the 149 jurisdictions participating in the Convention
View the signatories of the CRS MCAA
View the signatories of the CbC MCAA
Media queries should be directed to Manal Corwin (+33 1 45 24 18 80), Director of the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration (CTPA) or the CTPA Communications Team.