The Government of Bermuda has signed an important tax agreement with the United States, a Country by Country Competent Authority Agreement.
This agreement signifies that the Government of Bermuda has satisfied the Internal Revenue Services' (IRS) data safeguards review and complies with the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) tax transparency standards. Under this agreement Bermuda now automatically provides corporate income of Bermuda based multinational enterprises that have any US income-generating activities.
This complements Bermuda's other automatic exchange of information agreement with the USA which was signed on December 19, 2013 that provides income information on US taxpayers under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).
This new agreement with the US for CbC is consistent with an agreement signed earlier this month between Bermuda and the United Kingdom (UK). The UK agreement, like the US agreement, enables the automatic reporting of corporate income on a country by country basis for UK tax enforcement purposes. Bermuda is the first UK Overseas Territory to sign a CbC Competent Authority Agreement with the UK and now also with the USA.
Premier and Minister of Finance, the Hon. David Burt, JP, MP, today stated, "The agreement we have put in place with the United States demonstrates Bermuda's continued commitment to being transparent, cooperative and compliant with international tax authorities. As a leading jurisdiction in global tax transparency we will continue, without reservation, to show that Bermuda is no place to hide money. We stand by our call for other countries to meet the 'Bermuda Standard'."