Panama and Mexico sign agreement to prevent tax evasion
Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli and this Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderón, were the Witnesses of Honor at the signing of an agreement to avoid double taxation and to prevent tax evasion on Income Tax, which was achieved within the framework of the Summit of Latin American and Caribbean Unity. The document which was signed by Vice President and Foreign Minister, Juan Carlos Varela and the Secretary of the Treasury and Public Credit of Mexico, Ernesto Cordero, seeks to exclude from the Panamanian platform financial services, legal, trust, trade and transport from the discriminatory list for tax reasons. During his speech President Felipe Calderón said that - with the signing of this Agreement - Mexico could promote Panama internationally as a country that meets international standards on fiscal matters. For his part, Ricardo Martinelli added that the signing of this kind of agreement forms part of the actions his government is taking to promote better transparency, competitiveness, and to strengthen existing good practices in economic activities of Panama's service sector. (Source: Panama America)
Editor's Comment: Panama's strategy to avoid being classified as a rogue nation or tax haven is to negotiate and sign bilateral information sharing agreements with like-minded nations. The United States wants to force Panama to open it's books. The US calls it "information sharing" but in practice the United States doesn't have any information Panama wants. Therefore, all of the information would be flowing one way - from Panama to the United States. There are a great many nations in the world that feel the same way as Panama - that the United States has no right to twist their arms or otherwise force them to provide information on Panamanian companies. Therefore, Panama is negotiating and signing a whole host of these bilateral agreements to avoid "double taxation" which they can then point to and proclaim that the nation is being responsible internationally speaking.
