The Bahamas has concluded Tax Information Exchange Agreement negotiations with 23 countries, signed ten agreements and will meet the G20/OECD’s March 2010 deadline of a minimum of 12 signed agreements.

To date, The Bahamas has signed ten TIEAs with the US, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, China, France, New Zealand, Argentina, Belgium, the Netherlands, Monaco and San Marino.

TIEA negotiations have been successfully concluded with Germany, Canada, Spain, Mexico, Australia, South Africa, South Korea, and the seven Nordic countries of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Greenland and Faroe Islands.

Signature on agreements by countries with whom The Bahamas has concluded negotiations will follow the completion of the relevant internal procedures required for the signing of treaty instruments. These internal procedures, which have been fast tracked by some countries, include the added requirement of translating the agreement into relevant native languages, an important element of negotiations that is often a fundamental constitutional requirement for the validity of treaty instruments.

In September of this year, The Bahamas was elected to membership of the OECD Peer Review Group, a group comprising members of a re-vamped OECD Global Forum. The Peer Review Group is responsible for developing a programme of peer reviews to monitor progress of the implementation of the tax information exchange standards among the 90-plus members of the OECD Global Forum.

The group also monitors this progress in identified international financial centres that are not currently members of the Global Forum.