Prime Minister David Cameron invited Guernsey’s chief minister, deputy Peter Harwood, to attend the pre-G8 ‘open for growth’ meeting at Lancaster house on 15 June to discuss tax, trade and transparency with governments from around the world.
The meeting—which is part of the UK’s G8 tax, trade and transparency agenda—was also attended by Deputy Harwood’s counterparts from Jersey and the Isle of Man, as well as representatives form the G8 members from African and Latin American nations, and from the UK’s overseas territories.
Deputy Harwood said: “We had a frank conversation with the Prime Minister, and I asked him to acknowledge the strong track record Guernsey has on tax transparency, on information exchange and on beneficial ownership—the latter demonstrated by Guernsey being one of the few jurisdictions in the world, including G8 members, to actually regulate trust and corporate service providers.”
“Guernsey welcomed the G8 and this meeting as opportunities to set out our leadership on tax and transparency. It was certainly useful to meet other participants in the tax session and to ask them to look beyond political rhetoric and judge Guernsey on the actions for tax transparency and against tax evasion that it has taken.”
The UK also used the meeting to set out its commitment to the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Assistance in Tax Matters. In addition, the UK announced its intention for all of the G8 members to publish ‘national action plans’ on beneficial ownership on 18 June.
Deputy Harwood said: “I welcome the UK’s commitment to improve the supervision and enforcement of company formation agents in the UK and other jurisdictions, and which will bring those jurisdictions up to the standards that have been in place in Guernsey since the year 2000.”
“However we also recognise that Guernsey has an obligation to maintain its position among those jurisdictions who show leadership on the recording of details on beneficial ownership. For that reason we will also set out an action plan of steps that will further strengthen the procedures we already have in place to prevent the misuse of companies and legal arrangements in Guernsey.”
