BASSETERRE, St Kitts (CMC) -- St Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Dr Denzil Douglas has blasted the French government as "acting out of turn and prematurely" by including this twin-island federation on a list of jurisdictions that it considers to be "uncooperative tax havens".

Earlier this week, France named 18 nations as being uncooperative tax havens and threatened to impose higher taxes on French companies that have operations in those jurisdictions. Anguilla, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines were the other Caribbean countries on that blacklist.

"We think that France has acted out of turn and it has acted prematurely against the commitment that was made with the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries that March 2010 would have been the deadline for any punitive action to be taken," said Dr Douglas, who is also minister of finance.

He was referring to a decision taken by the Paris-based OECD following its publication last April of a progress report that surveyed how jurisdictions across the globe were progressing towards implementing the internationally agreed tax standard.

St Kitts and Nevis, along with several other Caribbean countries, was placed on a "grey list" of jurisdictions that were classified as having "committed to the internationally agreed tax standard, but have not yet substantially implemented".

In order to graduate to a "white list" of jurisdictions that have "substantially implemented the agreed tax standard", countries were given until March this year to sign at least 12 Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs) with OECD member countries or face sanctions.

At the time, St Kitts and Nevis was yet to sign any such accords but Dr Douglas pointed out that the twin-island federation has since signed nine different agreements with OECD countries and that agreements have been initialled with 11 other nations and negotiations are continuing with six more countries.

The Grenada government reacted swiftly to the action by Paris. Finance Minister Nazim Burke told reporters earlier this week that his country's classification as an uncooperative tax haven was nothing more than a bureaucratic mistake.

Burke said an agreement has already been reached between the two governments and a date will soon be announced for signing the accord.

"Just last week we concluded our negotiations with the government of France and its representatives," Burke said, adding "we have reached an agreement with them as to the content of the agreement that will be signed and we feel confident that is an error.

"It is our anticipation that all that is left for the French at this moment is to arrange the date and time for signing of the agreement that has been concluded."

Burke added that Grenada is on target to conclude the agreed 12 TIEAs by next month as required by the OECD.

"We are satisfied that we are moving forward in the manner that we have to. The understanding is that all countries will conclude no less than twelve agreements by March 2010," he said.

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