Last night during President Biden’s first Joint Session of Congress speech, in one of the strongest parliaments in the world, President Biden show-cased Bermuda in an unprecedented manner, unlike any other US President in the past twenty years. He did the unthinkable and singled out Bermuda as a “tax haven” on an international stage, and it should be extremely alarming for Bermuda. Through the President, the Biden administration made it very clear that Bermuda is in their crosshairs when it comes to tax reform and offshore financial centres. With a global audience of millions of people, this is not the type of attention this island needs.
What are our so-called friends in the Democratic Party in Washington doing to educate the Biden administration about the critical role Bermuda plays and contributes to the United States financial service industry and economy? What are the lobbyists in Washington D.C. being paid for and what is Bermuda’s U.S. Counsel General doing, if these messages are not reaching the highest levels of power in the U.S?
Our Government, a delegation from our global reinsurance companies, delegates from others in the International Business sector, along with the Opposition, should go with haste to Washington to educate and remind our U.S. friends of the critical role that Bermuda plays to support the U.S. economy and other items such as:
- Bermuda existing U.S. tax treaty;
- The fact that Bermuda firms provide the catastrophe, property and casualty insurance, cyber insurance, directors, and officers insurance cover to major U.S. corporations;
- The support that Bermuda gave to the U.S. insurance and reinsurance market, through our international reinsurance carriers.
- The hurricane, fire, earthquake insurance cover that Bermuda companies provide for the hurricanes, fires and floodings which plague the U.S. on an annual basis
- The support that Bermuda gave them during the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York.
- About the billions of dollars that Bermuda’s reinsurance industry pays annually for most of their catastrophic events, and will continue to pay to the U.S. Billions of dollars in claims, to help keep some of their local economies afloat.
- The thousands of jobs created in the U.S. because of our financial service industry.
Bermuda must not take this serious threat lightly, we must take action now, as this could also be the beginning of a strategic threat being foisted upon all offshore centres by the OECD and the E.U. in regards to international corporate tax harmonization.