The offshore financial centre is tweaking its reporting systems and pushing out a registration deadline as it deals with global compliance deadlines.

The tax authority in the British Virgin Islands is updating reporting systems to fit in with the “country-by-country reporting” system adopted by major nations to stop firms shuffling profit reports to minimise taxes.

The BVI International Tax Authority is changing the British Virgin Islands Financial Account Reporting System, extending the registration deadline for BVI. “Constituent Entities” has been extended, according to a briefing note from Maples Group, an international law firm. 

Jurisdictions such as BVI are under pressure to comply with international accords drawn up by the Group of 20 industrialised nations to force firms to be more transparent about their tax reporting and use of offshore centres.

Separately, Maples pointed out that the BVI’s tax authority has pushed out the registration deadline for non-reporting BVI financial institutions when it comes to complying with the Common Reporting Standard. (CRS is an international set of agreements among countries to swap information in order to chase alleged tax dodgers.)

Non-reporting institutions are typically defined under the CRS as government bodies, central banks, retirement funds, collective investment schemes and any entity where there is a low risk of it being used to evade tax.

In addition, the reporting deadline for BVI financial institutions that qualify as Trustee Documented Trusts and that have reportable accounts for 2018 has been extended to 28 June 2019. If the Trustee Documented Trust has nothing to report a nil filing must be submitted no later than 28 June 2019. The ITA has reconfirmed that it was mandatory for all BVI reporting financial institutions which do not maintain any reportable accounts to submit a nil report by 31 May, Maples added.