Al Rawi: More EU FATCAs on the way

In 2013, the Kamla Persad-Bissessar- led Government, he said, “signed onto the Global Forum and committed Trinidad and Tobago - as they did with FATCA with the United States in 2013 - to comply with 15 other versions of FATCA with 15 other countries in the European Union.” Speaking to the motion in the House of Representatives yesterday, to adopt the Joint Select Committee (JSC) on the Tax Information Exchange Bill, 2016 to make TT FATCA compliant, Al Rawi said, “The Global Forum is going to be determining in a matter of a couple of days - between February 20 and 24 in France - a fast track mechanism to do exactly what we are doing under the Tax Information Exchange Act for the Global Forum.” From 2013 to 2015, the past administration, he said, did not do “a shred of work” on the issue.

Finance Minister Colm Imbert, he said, had to approach the Global Forum to say Government was in default, and seek a way out.

To this end, he said, the Global Forum has invited Government to a meeting in France to figure out an accelerated forum.

“If we don’t have it in place by June 2017, crapaud smoke the national pipe,” he said.

Commenting on the JSC report, Al Rawi said, “We have done everything possible - everything possible to come up with a law that meets the scrutiny of members.” Opposition Senator Gerald Ramdeen, he said, complimented Imbert for the management of the JSC, and the verbatim report shows fulsome agreement on the minutes, the round robin process, and engagement with the public.

He said he was not schedule to speak but because of Opposition MP Dr Roodal Moonilal’s contribution, which he did not agree with he spoke. “It was supposed to be one speaker on each side of the House, he said.

Unlike the Opposition that was not aware of the deadline for compliance, Al Rawi said, “The country knows that the deadline for demonstrations of commitment was February 2017.” The PNM administration was committed to the course of action, he said, because the last government elected to go down this route.