We told you earlier today about Allen Stanford’s lobbying to get some businesses taxed at the US Virgin Islands rate rather than the US rate. And about how Stanford had lately been in the process of moving his Caribbean headquarters to St. Croix, in the Virgin Islands.
Well, one Virgin Islands paper, the St. Thomas Source, has some more interesting details on those subjects…
The paper reports that, in a speech at a 2007 economic summit in St. Croix, Stanford made his pitch for more favorable tax laws that he said would spur more investment. He sought changes that would have allowed money from companies headquartered in the Virgin Islands (like his own) to flow into the US virtually tax free.
Stanford presented this change as a boon to the whole region:
“If that were to happen, the Caribbean Basin as a whole, and the Virgin Islands in particular, would see serious investment begin to flow in almost overnight.”
Stanford even said he brought up the idea to US Treasury Department officials, and hoped to have “draft legislation” ready to present by mid October.
He repeated the pitch at a ceremony to break ground on his new planned Caribbean headquarters in the V.I.
“The law must include all Caribbean-created revenues, as long as the company is headquartered in the Virgin Islands,” he told the crowd, which contained local dignitaries and lawmakers.
There is no record of any such legislation being introduced since at least 2005, says the paper.