On 26-27 October 2012, the Minister of Finance Hon. Mr. Roland S. Tuitt MBA CPA, attended the fifth meeting of the OECD’s Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (the Global Forum) in Cape Town, South Africa. During the meeting, the Global Forum adopted the Sint Maarten’s Phase 1 Peer Review Report, which summarizes the legal and regulatory framework for transparency and exchange of information of Sint Maarten. Sint Maarten’s report concludes that all the assessed elements of Sint Maarten’s legal and regulatory framework are in place, with only a few recommendations on further improvement to implement the international standard more effectively.
The Minister of Finance welcomes the positive outcome of Sint Maarten’s Phase I Peer Review assessment and believes that the report is one that Sint Maarten can truly be proud of. Being the last assessed country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands to be reviewed, Sint Maarten had the privilege to draw on the experiences of Aruba, Curacao and the Netherlands in their peer review processes. "This has helped us to identify the strengths and shortcomings that exist in our legal and regulatory framework. As a result, the government of Sint Maarten was able to proactively address these shortcomings and produced the best report within the Kingdom of the Netherlands!".
The Global Forum is the multilateral framework within which work in the area transparency and exchange of information is carried out by over 110 member countries, who participate in the Global Forum on an equal footing. The Netherlands Antilles, now succeeded by Sint Maarten, has been a valued member of the Global Forum since 2001.
Minister Tuitt stated that the Global Forum and OECD network will assist Sint Maarten as the government continues to work on improving tax compliance, preventing tax leakage, and improving the tax system by making it more simple, fair and balanced. This will ultimately be to the benefit of both the government and the tax payers of Sint Maarten in the long run by increasing overall tax revenues while reducing the individual tax burden for tax payers.