The Isle of Man has inked a total of 25 TIEAs, including agreements with seven out of the world 10 major economies. More specifically, it has done so with all of the top five global economies - US, China, Japan, India and Germany. Its TIEA with Japan will come into force on September 1st 2011, after the Isle of Man completed its ratification of the tax agreement.
As a UK dependent territory, the island adopted and is now executing the EU Saving Tax Directive aimed at creating a uniform tax exchange system across all EU member states. In addition to focusing on its main European business partners, The Isle of Man has taken major steps designed to attract more business from Asia. In the past two years, five out of the country most recent 11 TIEAs were with an Asian country, most notably China, Japan and India.
These efforts signal the Isle of Man commitment to transparency and cooperation on the exchange of tax related information. It also demonstrates its dedication to implementing the directives of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which are widely viewed as the international standards for effective tax relations across nations. Additionally, government officials have signed four Double Taxation Agreements (DTAs) since 2009.
The island also just wrapped up a custom-made ship superintendent training course administered to Shenzhen based China LNG Shipping (International) Company Ltd. The program is mainly designed for seagoing staff and is meant to introduce them to the ship-management aspect of the industry. Subjects were varied and included insurance, legal matters, budgeting tutorials, report writing, dry docking, quality control, as well as environmental and safety issues. The Isle of Man hopes to further promote its sixth annual maritime training program to other shipping companies based in China, Nigeria, the UK and Japan. The course is a collectively designed by the Isle of Man Ship Registry, the Isle of Man International Business School (The IBS), Döhle (Isle of Man) and Bernhard Schulte (Isle of Man) and is managed by EMCS International Limited.
