| It was brought out that requests for information under a TIEA would be narrow, focused on individual taxpayers, and based on facts that suggested that the taxpayer was evading taxes.
Any request made would have to: Specify the name of the U.S. tax payer; the tax period in question; the nature of the information being sought and its relationship to the tax period; the person and location of the information in The Bahamas, and a declaration that the information was relevant or material to the administration of a criminal tax matter for any request received prior to the first of Jan. 2006 and for both criminal and civil matters after the first of Jan. 2006.
The Bahamas would only have to comply with the request if the information requested was located in The Bahamas.
Once it was satisfied that a properly constituted request was received, the Minister of Finance, the competent authority for The Bahamas in the administration of this Act, would issue a notice to the relevant person having custody of the information to specify how the information was to be provided. |