St Kitts tries to make doing business easier
Friday March 18 2011 | 04:07 AM

Proposed amendments making easier to register a company in St. Kitts and Nevis, changing the amount required to be deposited by insurance underwriters and providing for the availability and accessibility of certain information for tax purposes, are among draft legislation to be debated in Parliament today.

One proposed amendment to The Companies Act will make it easier to register a company in the federation by removing the mandatory requirement for the company to have a seal to be registered.

“This is in keeping with the regional movement to facilitate the ease of doing business in the Caribbean. This amendment to the companies’ legislation has already been made in most of the OECS Member states and would now reflect what generally occurs in practice,” a government statement said.

The Limited Partnerships Act is also being amended to make it mandatory for the general partners of every limited partnership to keep accounting records for at least five years, disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the limited partnership, and allow for the preparation of financial statements.

Another proposed amendment, to the Insurance Act, makes provisions for underwriters of insurance to conduct any class of insurance business unless it has deposited with the Registrar the greater of EC$200,000 (US$74,074) or 20 percent of the premium income, net of insurance in respect of business carried on in St. Kitts and Nevis.

Proposed amendments to The Foundations Act and The Trusts Act include the requirements to keep proper record of accounts and documents, sales and purchases, assets and liabilities.

The legislative amendments come after shortcomings were identified by the Global Forum Phase One Review Assessment which began on February 1 this year.

That assessment was to determine whether the twin-island federation has adequate legislation in place to allow for information for tax purposes to be available and accessible in accordance with Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) standards and the Saint Christopher and Nevis (Mutual Exchange of Information on Taxation Matters) Act No. 7 of 2009, among other things.