February 23, 2024
Finally, the European Union has let the Bahamas, Belize and the Turks and Caicos off of the ground and took them off of the non-cooperative tax jurisdictions. There are still a few more countries in the region on the list, notably, Antigua, Anguilla, Panama and Trinidad.
Getting the EU off of your back is a laborious process. They want so much and give so little back to you after they have tarnished your reputation. They want all of the information on beneficial ownership and all of the details on who is operating in your jurisdiction, but in the meantime, when business leaves the jurisdiction for lack of safety, the EU does not give most of the countries they have smeared any relief in the way of additional development support or any new business opportunities.
This is why people like this author is more than happy to tell the EU and their greedy socialist bureaucrats to take a hike. But this is only in fantasy, because telling the EU to take a hike, without any support from the US or even China, you are kissing a great deal of international financial support a small developing nation could have goodbye.
So this is where we are. Hopefully some of these multinational corporations that the EU is following stop supporting some of these bureaucrats in their re-election bids and we have a wave of new EU politicians who understand what side the bread is buttered on. Hopefully this happens, because it is easy for humans to get into positions of power and forget that there is a real world out there.