Ministers dismiss tax secrecy report as deliberately misleading

Not credible and deliberately misleading: Cabinet Ministers Tara Rivers and Roy McTaggart gave their take on a report that names Cayman as the world’s 3rd most secretive jurisdiction.

Finance Minister McTaggart told Cayman 27 the Tax Justice Network, publisher of the so-called Financial Secrecy Index has its own agenda. He said other organisations like OECD have found Cayman’s tax transparency regime largely compliant.

“We continue to be portrayed in such a negative manner by this group,” said Minister McTaggart. “I don’t particularly give that report a lot of credence whatsoever.”

Financial services minister rivers says the tax justice network is drafted upon a questionable methodology and is simply not credible…

“The report on Cayman was drafted in a way that is deliberately misleading, in that it seeks to weave historic issues into the narrative in an attempt to diminish all the work that has been done in the Cayman Islands to strengthen our regulatory regime over the last several years, certainly decades, but certainly the last five years,” said Minister Rivers.

Both ministers stressed the need for Cayman to better promote the jurisdiction, rather than allowing detractors to mould public perception of Cayman and the offshore industry as a whole.