Bermuda falls in line, joins global minimum corporate tax alliance

Bermuda approved its plan to fall in line with the OECD's global minimum corporate tax plan, slapping a 15% tax on corporate income effective from the start of 2025. 

The Bermuda Senate approved the Corporate Income Tax Act following passage by the House of Assembly on Friday. 

One opposition grouping attempted to amend the proposal to ring fence the revenue for debt reduction, but the effort was turned back by the Government. 

The new law charges the 15% tax on multinational enterprises with more than €750 million (about $808 million) of annual revenue. 

The tax is being introduced after the OECD mandated a global 15% minimum tax and introduced a measure by which countries would be able to collect the tax from companies wherever the home country had failed to do so. 

Bermuda has no estimate yet for how much revenue the new tax will raise, but a deputy minister was quoted in the local press saying the sum could prove “substantial” and could overtake payroll tax as the largest earner for the Government.

The island will spend the coming year building tax collection infrastructure. Senate vice president Kiernan Bell warned that the investment in new institutions, with outlays preceding any eventual revenues, could prove significant for the “seismic shift” in the island’s tax structure.

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