“The Nevis Island Administration is encouraging those persons or businesses that will be affected to familiarise themselves with the regulations and make the necessary arrangements to comply.

“We need to start evaluating ourselves – where we are now and what we need to do going forward. We also need to start the process of assessing the impact of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) on our organisations,” he said.

The legislation which was designed by the US Government to improve tax compliance for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), would involve foreign financial assets and off shore accounts. Tax payers from the US with specified foreign financial assets that exceed a certain threshold would have to report their assets to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Mr. Amory offered a number of suggestions that could be taken by the Service Providers to comply with the impending legislation that could impact the Jurisdiction.

“Organisations need to develop a culture of compliance which requires that they identify personnel at a very senior level to provide the leadership necessary to bring about change; the requisite human and financial resources must be allocated to ensure effective compliance,” he said.

The Finance Minister also spoke of the need for an ongoing training programme that would communicate compliance policies at all levels of the organisation. He added that disciplinary action should also be taken against employees who breached compliance policies.

“This will demonstrate to the employee that the organisation is indeed very serious about compliance,” he said.

According to the Finance Minister, systems and procedures should be tested and reviewed periodically and he also recommended that the Service Providers establish a compliance code of conduct for the Industry.