Rivers seeks support from US senators
Minister Tara Rivers and US Sen. John Cornyn
(CNS): Financial Services Minister Tara Rivers was in Washington, DC, last week, trying to persuade US Senators and others that Cayman’s financial services industry is well regulated and adhering to tax transparency standards. Picking up from an earlier visit, the minister spoke with American lawmakers about the industry here and its record of compliance as well as the impact of bank de-risking on Cayman residents and businesses. She also reminded them of the longstanding and beneficial relationship between the US and Cayman.
Rivers and her policy and legislation director, Michelle Bahadur, met with Texas Senator John Cornyn, the assistant majority leader of the US Senate and member of the Senate Finance and Judiciary Committees. He is the second highest-ranking Republican Senator.
Officials said in a release that Rivers briefed him on Cayman’s record in adopting and enforcing international standards for tax transparency and information sharing to dispel the myths that have persisted in the US about this jurisdiction.
“For many years, Cayman has worked hand in glove with the US Treasury and, by extension, the IRS to ensure that Cayman cannot be used to avoid US taxes,” Rivers said. “Cayman shares tax information with US Treasury and the IRS through US FATCA and prior to that, in 2001, we signed a bilateral agreement that fulfilled a similar purpose.”
She continued, “Likewise, we share tax information with more than 100 countries around the world through the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard. Sharing information globally allows tax authorities to better ensure that taxpayers pay their taxes in the countries in which they are due.”
Rivers told Cornyn about Cayman’s requirements for beneficial ownership disclosure upon the formation of companies, contrasting this with the lax rules on beneficial ownership in US states like Delaware. Cornyn was reportedly surprised about the depth and breadth of Cayman’s laws, and agreed that senators making statements to the contrary are incorrect.
The minister also met Senator Chuck Grassley (Republican-Iowa), the chair of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and a senior member of the Finance Committee. As the co-sponsor of a Senate bill that would impose civil and criminal penalties in the US for providing false or fraudulent beneficial ownership information for corporations or limited liability companies, officials said that he was keen to hear about Cayman’s experiences in developing and implementing our beneficial ownership framework.
During her trip Rivers spoke with the chair of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Mike Crapo (Republican-Idaho) about the impact of de-risking on Cayman financial institutions, money transfer providers and individuals. Carpo has oversight power of the Federal Reserve Bank and the US Treasury’s financial services powers. According to the release, he promised Rivers that he would look into the loss of banking services to customers here because of de-risking.
During her meeting with Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (Republican-Missouri), who serves as Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, Rivers thanked him for holding a public hearing earlier in July on the effects of bank de-risking. He said he would also continue to shed light on de-risking in his subcommittee to learn more about the effect on Cayman.
Rivers addressed similar issues in a meeting with a senior professional staff member for Senator Sherrod Brown (Democrat-Ohio), the Ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
The minister rounded out the visit to DC by speaking to 75 people at an event hosted by the Global Women Innovation Network (GlobalWIN) and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, LLP, which assists the Cayman Islands Government with US legal counsel.
Category: Business, Financial Services
Do something and people complain. Do nothing and people complain more!
What about hers National youth policy, a nonsensical and stillborn achievement of which she is very proud of? Wait, Juliana, also claims the authorship.
Oh no…everytime her and/or Alden tutor other governments about Cayman’s financial industry regulatory regime we get targeted by a new industry devastating law.
President Trump will probably put a trade embargo on Cayman after this meeting . She better be careful, and not be like the guy that tried to bribe the Cop with donuts for lifetime .
Last time she went to win friends and influence people Dame Margret Hogg, decide to kill off the financial services sector with a legislative order on beneficial ownership. Wonder what this lot will do after she leaves THIS TIME …. LMAO
Well, that achieved nothing.
who sent her ….
How many years of experience has Ms Rivers had in Cayman’s financial industry?. To read this article the lady who is Policy and Legislation Director only went along to provide cups of tea for her boss who did all the talking and even wrote her own article.
It’s great that we’re out there setting the record straight. Pity it hasn’t been done effectively for the last 20 years allowing a now outdated and damaging image of Cayman to fester in the public conscience for so long.
Well done Ms. Tara. Quite interesting! I sincerely hope that you will be leading all meetings/ plans going forward concerning open registers etc. you need to be at the table to get the framework set up before 2020. So far you are the only one in your government that seems to have a grasp on exactly what we do here.
Only Cayman Finance and Anthony Travers have a TRUE grip on the industry.
And she wouldn’t be there if she wasn’t needed/wanted. Those Leaders that she’s visiting are some of our biggest customers and have paved the way to what we have become. Symbiotic or whatever, we owe a lot of what we celebrate to them!
VIVA le “longstanding and beneficial relationship!”
\O/ \O/ \O/ \O/ \O/ \O/ \O/ \O/ \O/ \O/ \O/ \O/ \O/ \O/
Someone should have told her, she is wasting her time, the only language Republicans understand is campaign contributions and lobbying
Get the CIG to wire 100k to each GOP senator every election year, and they would carve Alden and Mac into Mt Rushmore
Don’t forget in the land of the “free” money counts as “free speech” and bribery is legal as long as you send the money to a “independent” Super-PAC, that totally won’t coordinate with the campaign in any way shape or form
That would be preposterous
Diogenes
Alternative Article Title ideas:
“Rivers discovers remaining dinosaurs in North America”
‘Tara wastes time and taxpayer monies talking to half of a soon to be deadlocked bicameral legislature”
“Tara takes trip north to ensure that her role in the inevitable PPM cruise berthing failure won’t affect her ability to join the GOP once she reclaims her american citizenship”
“Alden orders Rivers to discover the secret to GOP electoral majorities despite an average 15% congressional approval rating nationwide”
The alternative is to bury our heads in the sand and allow the baseless drivel from the socialists at the Guardian and Oxfam to go entirely unchallenged.
Met with a lot of republicans… btw it is pronounced cray-po but I think he is crap-o.