EXPERT: UK pressure is based on misunderstanding
UK critics who portray the British Virgin Islands (BVI) as a tax haven simply misunderstand the territory’s financial services sector, according to Martin Kenny, a veteran anti-fraud expert who has worked in the BVI’s financial services industry for two decades.
The BVI has long faced international criticism that it is home to thousands of shell companies used for tax avoidance or secrecy. But Kenny said those claims ignore the real value BVI companies bring to the global economy.
“When we talk about financial services in the BVI, what we’re really talking about are about 350,000 companies that call this territory home,” Kenny said.
“Those companies employ people, generate value and activity around the world and hold an estimated $1.5 trillion of value. Our BVI companies are holding almost as much as the value of Canada’s entire economy in a full year.”
He explained that BVI companies play a crucial role in enabling capital to move from developed nations to developing parts of the world.
“One important thing that has come from our product called ‘company’ is the opportunity to move surplus money from developed nations like Canada, the United States and the European Union into developing parts of the world — Latin America, Africa, parts of Southeast Asia,” Kenny said.
“Globalisation in the 1990s really took off because structures like ours allowed capital to be aggregated and invested productively into the developing countries, improving livelihoods and building infrastructure.”
Kenny emphasized that the BVI’s regulatory framework is robust and supports efforts to combat fraud and corruption.
“The critics, principally some folks in London, are basing their views on a misunderstanding of what the companies in the BVI are all about and how well-regulated they are,” he said.
“As someone who is deeply involved in the fight against fraud and corruption, I can say the BVI’s court system is nothing short of excellent for the delivery of remedies and justice.”
With financial services contributing about 60 percent of the territory’s government revenue — roughly $200 million per year — Kenny said defending the BVI’s reputation is critical. “When you have 60 percent of your economy relying on one good product, you must defend that product when it comes under criticism or attack,” he said.
Industry leaders and government officials have repeatedly stressed that the BVI meets or exceeds international standards for transparency, and have pushed back against what they call outdated perceptions of the territory as a secretive tax haven.
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Humm this a bad time to talk transparency boy
The next thing to take a hit will be tourism because people can be so god darn rude and unprofessional for no reason. Why come here when other Caribbean countries are genuinely friendly and give excellent service and experience. The rudeness start the minute you step off the plane or boat.
Tourism done hit bad already – 4 years so far for the top-secret plan that will make us the best in the world. 😉
Big words
Self proclaimed for sure. Perhaps MKS should investigate the timely $5 million deposit into the failed Bank of Asia!
He might have been wise to disclose if he is representing any of the alleged perpetrators in the bank matter…
When you have 60% of you economy dependent on one product you need to make sure that product is transparent and that it is not facilitating and protecting terrorist and corrupt activities, and you do that by making it clear who owns the companies involved.
The only reasons those companies exist here is so that they can hide who they are.
60% of our economy depends on that.
It seems that we are all good with that.
We are complicit.
But, hey, we do have a poster of a criminal on the walls of our House of our House of Assembly and proudly celebrate him in our Emancipation Festival.
We are what we are.
Until we are not.
Desperate and entirely misconceived arguments by a so-called ‘Expert’. The regulatory system is broken, as evidenced by the Bank of Asia debacle. Tax avoidance and adding value to the global economy are mutually exclusive. Pablo Escobar added a lot to world trade as well. The court system cannot work if the matters do not reach its steps, which the reasons for the grey-list status show they do not. Quit deflecting from the issues and hit them head on with sensible steps to address the problem. Not a single one is advanced by the ‘Expert’. If those steps cannot be put forward, then sit back and accept the fate.
do those companies pay corporate tax here? no. Would they pay tax elsewhere? Yes. Does that make it preferable to register a company here instead of elsewhere? Yes. Is this also called tax avoidance. YES!
Tax avoidance is not tax evasion. Everyone avoids paying tax where they can, the problem is that the UK populace, appear, by and large to be scroungers, eternally seeking to benefit from that which they did not work for or earn.
That is a disgusting thing to say. British tax payers are justifiably proud of the welfare system that was set up after WW2. It meant that poor people could get health care, housing and other essentials so that they could be productive and the economy could grow.
Now thanks to people with your crazy survival-of-the-fittest world view, means there’s a collapsing health system, all the state entities that were set up for the people are now owned by sleazy Russians and other 100% profit-focused entities that are usually registered in places like this so they don’t have to pay tax and can reap all the rewards while the population gets a worse and worse service – bad healthcare, over priced housing, dirty rivers, expensive heating, etc. Rickets, food banks, etc.
And that’s just the ‘legal’ companies, helped by your favourite kind of selfish government. Don’t even start on the sneaky thieves, dodgers, cartels, government grifters, terrorists, extorters, mafia etc who use these islands for their business by moving 500 times faster than you and your ‘on-paper regulations’ and rules could dream of.
Oh yes, let’s alert the company under investigation that someone will be investigating them, in advance, and see if that’s ok with them.
Are you F-ing kidding?
You in the industry know all this is fancy dress. Some are better than others but everyone knows you’re pretending to do transparency. You know you are pretending to do compliance because real compliance is impossible. You just need to tick the box. Then smear those that care and even smear the whole population of Britain! incredible.
And you’ve made the BVI look foolish in front of the world. Here we are fighting for our right to help the corrupt!
All because people like you come and weave these stories about “privacy” and regulation and ignore the human imperative to help each other because all you see is dollars. Your gilded stories sound great to a population that only 1 generation ago was working fields and riding donkeys. But scratch the surface of your stories and smell the manure they’re made of.
This is the issue, you British people believe that only you should benefit from the what the world has to offer. In the same way Britain has no regard for the economy of the BVI, why should the BVI have any care in the world for the UK. In it were up to Britain, we would be in the same dire condition as French Guiana. For a Brit to cry foul and complain about the survival of the fittest is completely laughable, given that its economy, riches, and place in the world is based on the exploitation of others. Britain, who constantly told us know in our development goals NO to a secondary school, NO to a community college, NO to building an airport. As for your state-of-the-art public register, it has been publicly acknowledged that the “public information” is totally unreliable and unverified, so in the strongest BVI terms, “geh yuh MS”, if you even understand what that means.
Why should the BVI care about the state of the UK’s health care system? What regard has the UK shown to the BVI? If it were up to the British the BVI would be kept in the dire mess that French have French Guiana in, having consistently obstructed our development goals (no to a secondary school, no to a college, no to an airport, and the list goes on, but yes to a prison). The fact is that Britain’s place in the world, is not due to the hard work of its populace but rather from the exploitation and extraction of wealth from India, Africa and the Caribbean. The fact that this finds no place in your mind, is demonstrable of how little regard you have for the truth. The British built its systems on slavery, forced labour, colonialism and selling opium to China. As for the UK’s” public register”, it has also been lost on you that its information has been long known to be completely unreliable. Insofar as dirty money is concerned, London is the money laundering capital of the world, and has long been recognized as such, a reputation it has had for longer than the BVI has been in the financial services industry. I could go a lot further, but that would take the whole night. I maintain my point.
All of this is known to me and it seems my point was badly put.
First, the main objection was the poster saying British people are mostly scroungers. That was why I talked about the UK welfare state, not because I want BVI people to care particularly about Brits. It could have been any country in the world. It could have been the BVI.
eg what happened when we ‘lost’ $7m for an airline? Or when our SS money is just disappearing? Or when a wall is built that costs $1m? The point is that it is OUR money and someone has stolen it.
What do we do?
We offer the thief a safe place to hide it away so no one can trace it.
And we are proud of that job.
We have been told that we should have the ‘right’ to help criminals and thieves and mafias and to profit from their activities.And that anyone trying to stop us is being oppressive, when in fact we are demanding the right to be the oppressor’s number 1 helper.
That is the ethical conundrum that we have to grapple with.
You are being self righteous and hyperbolic
More money is laundered in the United States and Britain than in the entire Caribbean combined. Britain is the preferred haven for Russian criminal gangs.
The BVI’s problem is partly their own. They want to be seen as a “major player,” so they exaggerate their role. Headlines brag about $1.5 trillion in accounts — “more than Canada’s economy” — yet say it brings in just $200 million a year. Thats and indicator that we are just a placeholder. With vast computing power money isn’t sitting still. It moves — fast — and ends up in big, stable economies where it’s really put to work.
And the truth no one wants to say out loud: many of the people making this possible are well-connected locals and expatriates working at Law firms. . The same kind of people who run the game elsewhere. Are the Channel Islands of Britian any different? Of course not.
In Britain you can see who the owners of the companies are, here you cannot. If money is being laundered or used for terrorism you can find the people, in the VI you can not.
I do know in this Territory, we hide the ownership of companies, and criminals we have pictures hanging on the walls of our law making House of Assembly, and we walk through our streets in our Freedom Festivals with picture of convicted Criminals. Just facts.
In the Crown Dependencies I believe they also hide ownership. I don’t think they hang pictures of criminals on the walls of their law making assemblies or celebrate them in parades through their streets.
Really not sure what your point is as you seem to agree that we are complicit by pointing out “many of the people making this possible are well-connected locals and expatriates working at Law firms.”
But call me self righteous and hyperbolic if you must. As I said, we will be what we are until we are not.
You tried to diminish the role of Jersey , Isle of Man and Guernsey of money laundering by essentially saying well yeah they do but thy dont have parades for criminals or hang pictures of them on the wall; an ad hominem if there ever was one. So it appears that you would be ok with the BVI if an ex premier was not on the wall. You also dont seem to have the same vitriol for those locations , hmmmm I wonder why?
Which is their historic posture and practice for millennia.
And why the historic reluctance to relinquish colonial hooldings oof the West Indsies.
They are the equally as pernicious as France in dealing with overseas territories.
If there wasn’t fraud and corruption, this guy would have no purpose for being here…. Food for thought.
If there no stolen treasures and artificats, there would be no National British Museum. If the UK were absent of fraud, there would be no Serious Fraud Office, if Britain didn’t exploit others, there would be no Britain.
UK pressure is base on what they know. The System is very corrupt. And they know the players. The puzzling part is, Why are they not taking stiffer actions..
“Those companies employ people, generate value and activity around the world and hold an estimated $1.5 trillion of value.
This right here rattles the nerves and demons of the Un United Kingdom. Dam wicked Disciples of Lucifer.