The limited tax amnesty deadline for US citizens to come clean about their offshore investments passed this week with little impact for Bermuda, according to Finance Minister Paula Cox.

Speaking from Mexico City to Bloomberg Television's Margaret Brennan, Ms Cox described the impact of the expiry of the Internal Revenue Service amnesty as "negligible", since Bermuda has never promoted bank secrecy.

She also told Ms Brennan that Bermuda has suffered from the downturn in other ways, notably through companies not replacing departing staff and investors being more cautious about establishing start-ups in the difficult economic environment.

On the IRS amnesty deadline, Ms Cox said: "As a jurisdiction that has always embraced transparency and cooperation, it hasn't really had a kick for us.

"What's probably been much more in the news is the UBS issue for Bermuda because of the fact that we have the tax information exchange agreements, the fact that we also were the first jurisdiction to move from the grey list to the white list, and also the fact that we're continuing to sign TIEAs."

Ms Cox added that she was in Mexico City to sign the Island's 17th TIEA.

But Ms Cox did admit that both tourism, international business and Government revenues had felt the effects of the downturn.

"What you're finding is where there is a contraction it's because people are choosing not to increase employment, they're choosing not to replace labour force," Ms Cox said.

"And also because of the fact that investment fortunes are down, they are being much more cautious in terms of setting up new business, new funds.

"That's the impact and it certainly has had an effect on revenues and it certainly means that we're having to make sure that from an international financial services centre, we continue to look at how we can improve our regulatory framework, because now there is a dwindling piece of the pie and there are many competitors."

She added that when consumers had less money spend, they were less likely to spend on anything other than "must-do" things and tourism was impacted as a result.

The international financial services sector had been "much more the carrier of the economy" over the past 10 years.