In its sitting yesterday, the National Assembly scrutinised two more public Bills, namely the Beneficial Ownership (Amendment) Bill, 2022 and the Revenue Administration (Amendment) Bill, 2022 before unanimously approving them after close scrutiny of their different sections and provisions during committee stage discussions.

• Beneficial Ownership (Amendment) Bill, 2022

The Minister for Finance, National Planning and Trade, Naadir Hassan, explained in his presentation that the main reason for the series of amendments being proposed in the different sections of the Beneficial Ownership Act 2020 through the Beneficial Ownership (Amendment) Bill, 2022 is to bring Seychelles up to date and on par with international standards.

“The amendments will ensure that Seychelles remains in compliance with international standards especially with those under the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The latter has been mandated to work against money laundering, terrorism financing and proliferation,” Minister Hassan said.

He also pointed out that Seychelles is also working to meet the standards set by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) which calls on the different jurisdictions to maintain information on ‘Beneficial Owners’ and ensure that such information is accessible and available when requested by competent authorities.

This is necessary for the administration or enforcement of their relevant legislations in order to combat financial crimes. In addition the Bill seeks to improve the efficiency of implementation of existing systems as well as making monetary sanctions that are in the Bill more punitive and dissuasive.

In this Bill, though listed companies are exempted from the application of the Beneficial Ownership Act, the Bill creates a framework for the collection of certain minimal beneficial ownership information to be uploaded on the database which will facilitate searches on a complete?database. Further to this, the Bill makes provision that listed companies should be exempted only if there are applicable disclosure requirements providing adequate beneficial ownership information on those listed companies.

An object of this Bill is to align the provisions relating to trusts, with the new Trusts Act. It then addresses disclosure of beneficial ownership information by trustees in order to comply with FATF Recommendation 25.4 by allowing trustees to provide beneficial ownership information to competent Authorities among other amendmends.

• Revenue Administration (Amendment) Bill, 2022

When she presented the Bill for Assembly members’ consideration and approval, the Minister for Investment, Entepreneurship and Industry, Devika Vidot, noted that it is poposing several new amendments which will be applicable as from January 1, 2023.

The object of this Bill is to amend the Revenue Administration Act (Cap308) in order to insert the Accommodation Turnover Tax Act under the Administration of that Act as a consequential amendment upon the proposed enactment of the Accommodation Turnover Tax Act.

In addition, the Bill seeks to empower the Commissioner General of the Seychelles Revenue Commission (SRC) to extend the time within which returns may be furnished under a revenue law, whenever the commissioner general considers it necessary to do so.

The Bill further seeks to empower the ccommissioner general to suspend the recovery proceedings for outstanding revenue in cases where a taxpayer is faced with serious hardship, the outstanding revenue of a taxpayer is an uneconomical debt or the outstanding revenue of a taxpayer is an irrecoverable debt.

The Bill will permit the minister, in consultation of the commissioner general, to write off outstanding revenues. The Bill in addition creates a medical board consisting of three medical practitioners appointed by the minister to certify that a person has a serious illness that causes a serious hardship. The Bill also introduces penalties for taxpayers that gain a transfer pricing benefit under section 54 (4) and (7) of the Business Tax Act (Cap 20).

Meanwhile, the National Assembly will continue to scrutinise more Bills in today’s sitting.

Source: Seychelles Nation