Samoa will investigate allegations that an Australian accountant helped write the country’s tax code making it easy to use tax avoidance schemes as well as promoting the country as a tax haven.
The allegations were part of the “Pandora Papers” leaks on a tax minimization scheme promoted by Graeme Biggs, according to a Samoa Observer report.
“We will definitely review what’s coming out of the [Pandora papers] and it was an issue that was encountered by the previous administration,” Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa told the newspaper.
She said that it come down to the Samoan government tax policies which her government intends to look into.
Briggs, an Australian, is credited in the emails with helping to influence Samoa’s tax code in order to make it an attractive destination for businesses to incorporate offshore.
He established Asiaciti – one of 14 firms involved in the investigation – in 1978 and pushed the country to wealthy clients as a true tax haven.
According to the investigation, most tax specialists focused on established tax havens but Briggs pushed other companies to focus on Samoa.
In fact Samoa still remains on a European Union blacklist for money laundering after the international body alleged it was not following through on promises to stop companies from shifting profits overseas.
Regulators did fine Asiaciti more than $700,000 for not doing enough to ensure it was not assisting clients launder the illegal proceeds of crime, for the first two decades of the new century.
Singaporean regulators found that the firm was not doing enough to monitor the accounts of ‘Politically Exposed Persons’ or people connected to regimes, such as Valdimir Putin’s Russia.
The Samoan International Finance Authority has vowed to be removed from the black list.
