KINGSTON–The leader of the British Vir­gin Is­lands says the Caribbean ter­ri­to­ry has start­ed talks with the US Trea­sury to com­ply with a law de­signed to counter off­shore tax eva­sion.The tiny is­lands are one of the world's top off­shore trust ju­ris­dic­tions and the in­cor­po­rat­ed reg­istry for hun­dreds of thou­sands of com­pa­nies.Pre­mier Or­lan­do Smith said yes­ter­day that the ter­ri­to­ry is ne­go­ti­at­ing an in­ter­gov­ern­men­tal agree­ment with the US to com­ply with the US For­eign Ac­count Tax Com­pli­ance Act.

Smith says the is­lands are "not be­ing forced or co­erced" in­to fi­nal­is­ing a pact un­der the US law that will take ef­fect next year.The Cay­man Is­lands an­nounced last week that it had reached agree­ment with the US to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion on ac­counts held by US cit­i­zens un­der the same law.

AP