TTMA welcomes T&T’s removal from EU tax list

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) has wel­comed this coun­try’s re­moval from the Eu­ro­pean Union’s list of non-co­op­er­a­tive ju­ris­dic­tions for tax pur­pos­es.

The TTMA said it mon­i­tored the mat­ter be­cause of its im­pact on na­tion­al tax­a­tion.

The As­so­ci­a­tion com­mend­ed Gov­ern­ment for com­plet­ing the process, which ad­dressed is­sues re­lat­ed to tax trans­paren­cy and the adop­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards.

The TTMA stat­ed that the de-list­ing ‘re­flects leg­isla­tive, pol­i­cy and in­sti­tu­tion­al changes to meet gov­er­nance cri­te­ria.” It not­ed that the changes sup­port the mo­bil­i­sa­tion of do­mes­tic re­sources for de­vel­op­ment.

The As­so­ci­a­tion out­lined sev­er­al im­pli­ca­tions of the de­ci­sion, in­clud­ing im­proved mar­ket ac­cess and trad­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for ex­porters to the EU mar­ket; the pro­mo­tion of gov­er­nance stan­dards; the re­moval of de­fen­sive tax mea­sures; and com­pli­ance with in­ter­na­tion­al tax stan­dards on trans­paren­cy and fair tax­a­tion.

The As­so­ci­a­tion said the move af­fects bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions with the Eu­ro­pean Union, in­clud­ing eco­nom­ic re­la­tions and in­vest­ment. It point­ed to im­pli­ca­tions for in­vestor con­fi­dence, re­la­tions with trad­ing part­ners and en­gage­ment with de­vel­op­ment part­ners.

The As­so­ci­a­tion al­so cit­ed the po­ten­tial for ex­pand­ed trade and eco­nom­ic part­ner­ships with EU mem­ber states and ac­cess to in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial mar­kets and fund­ing.

The TTMA said it ex­pects out­comes from the de­ci­sion and will pro­mote Trinidad and To­ba­go as a des­ti­na­tion for trade, in­vest­ment and com­merce.