FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

Today Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill signed a new agreement with the United Kingdom, including the British Virgin Islands, that will allow for exchange of information on tax matters between the United States and the British Virgin Islands. The agreement was signed by Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, United Kingdom Ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer and British Virgin Island Governor Frank Savage.

At the signing ceremony, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill delivered the following remarks:

I would like to thank you all for being here today and welcome our friends from the United Kingdom and the British Virgin Islands, especially the Governor of the British Virgin Islands, Mr. Frank Savage, and the British Ambassador to the United States, Sir Christopher Meyer. I also want to extend a very warm welcome to Mr. Robert Mathavious and Mr. Michael Riegels of the Financial Services Commission of the British Virgin Islands.

The British Virgin Islands is one of the largest financial centers in the Caribbean and is widely recognized as a leader in its region. The United States and the British Virgin Islands already have a close and cooperative relationship on law enforcement matters under our mutual legal assistance treaty. In these troubled times, cooperation between countries is more important than ever before. As we all know, the funds associated with illicit activities, including terrorism, money laundering, and tax evasion, now move almost effortlessly across national boundaries. As a result, nations that are committed to thwarting these activities must be prepared to work together.

With today's signing of a tax information exchange agreement, the British Virgin Islands is once again demonstrating its commitment to cooperating with the United States on law enforcement matters.

As I have said on numerous occasions, we have an obligation to enforce our tax laws because failing to do so undermines the confidence of honest taxpayers in the fairness of our tax system. One of the keys to enforcement of our tax laws is access to needed information.

Several months ago I made a public commitment, in Congressional testimony, to expanding our network of tax information exchange relationships. We have already made significant progress in that regard, and today's signing is another major step forward.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Government of the British Virgin Islands for coming here today and demonstrating its leadership, its commitment to upholding international standards, and its insistence that its financial institutions are not to be used to further illicit activities of any kind.

I hope that the British Virgin Islands' cooperation with the United States in developing this tax information exchange agreement will serve as an example to other financial centers in the region and around the world. I look forward to convening here again in the coming weeks to announce additional agreements with other countries.

We have already signed tax information exchange agreements with the Cayman Islands, The Bahamas, and Antigua and Barbuda. The agreements signed in the past year are the first tax information exchange agreements that have been signed since 1992. We are gratified with the progress that has been made with the OECD project-more than 20 countries have committed to entering into agreements providing for transparency and tax information exchange.

 The text of the agreement :