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The meeting, reported by the Cayman News Service, debated the issue of confidentiality and whether trust clients' privacy could continue at a time when governments appeared to be focusing more and more disclosure

A panel of trust experts from Cayman, Guernsey, the UK, Switzerland and the Bahamas examined whether the right to privacy for trust clients could continue in light of the push by international bodies to live under regimes of disclosure during an industry conference last week where the issue of confidentiality was the top talking point for delegates. 

Despite the tax information agreements signed by offshore centers in recent years however, there were still ways that trust professionals could protect beneficiaries and confidentiality because of the hoops tax authorities needed to go through to extract information, the conference heard.

Robert Shepherd from Guernsey law firm MourantOzannes was reported as saying that TIEAs had been created by onshore governments to try and force offshore institutions to provide more information which would then bring in more revenue. 

He then explained how trust professionals could get round the agreement, referring to obstacles that tax authorities had to overcome in order to extract specific information such as correctly identifying the tax payer under suspicion. 

Tax expert and campaigner for an end to the TIEA, Richard Murphy, said that this proved the futility of the TIEA. It is this identification process, or rather the difficulty in identifying suspects due to the complex nature of trusts, that has long been the reason why the TIEA should go in favor of an automatic exchange of information on demand, he argued. 

The opinions expressed do not constitute investment advice and specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.

Published on our website on October 24, 2011