Island shuns abusive tax schemes

Friday 01 August 2014

The Chief and Treasury ministers have spoken out against aggressive tax planning schemes designed to avoid UK tax.

In a joint statement, Senators Ian Gorst and Phillip Ozouf said they supported fair tax competition, and view legitimate tax planning “as an appropriate response to operating cross-border”.

However, they spoke out against illegitimate activities and service providers who use abusive tax schemes designed to frustrate the will of national parliaments

Their statement read: “The UK has recently committed to introducing new measures to deal with tax advisers who sell contrived and abusive tax avoidance schemes, with the aim of deterring and preventing such schemes. This includes the new High Risk Promoter Scheme and enhancements to their existing Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Scheme (DOTAS) including accelerated payments.

 “Although it is for the UK Parliament to determine the extent to which UK residents are able to engage in lawful tax avoidance, given that Jersey does not wish to be associated with abusive tax schemes and in the spirit of being a good neighbour, we want to support the UK in achieving their ambitions in relation to that which we consider to be unacceptable.”

The States are working with the finance industry and Jersey Financial Services Commission (JFSC) on a package of measures to reinforce the message that Jersey does not welcome abusive tax planning structures. These measures will also provide a framework allowing action to be taken by the States under the Island’s business licensing regime against those seeking to use Jersey for abusive tax schemes targeted at UK residents.

Jersey has already signed an automatic information exchange agreement with the UK and this will allow the UK authorities access to all reportable information in relation to their taxpayers, thus allowing them to take any actions they consider necessary in respect of historic tax schemes they conclude are abusive.

“Jersey is also one of more than 40 countries to commit to early adoption of the OECD Common Reporting Standard on automatic exchange of information as a global standard, underlining our commitment to transparency and further evidencing our firm political commitment to fully comply with all relevant international standards,” the statement read.