By: Staff Writer
September 30, 2022
The European Union is set to add The Bahamas, Anguilla and the Turks and Caicos to its list of non-cooperative jurisdictions this coming October at the next EU Finance Ministers meeting.
Anguilla, was recently removed from the EU’s blacklist to the grey list in October, 2021 along with Dominica. Barbados too was removed from the blacklist in March, 2021
The EU drafted its first blacklist of non-cooperative jurisdictions in 2017, including territories that failed to made enough progress in areas including the exchange of information or the implementation of international standards to fight against tax erosion and tax evasion.
The original list included countries from around the world from Vietnam to Botswana and has continued to be a relevant marker in international tax practices.
It is worth noting now that all three of the countries set to be put on the blacklist are United Kingdom protectorates or closely tied to the United Kingdom as with the case of The Bahamas, a former colony.
With the United Kingdom leaving the European Union in 2020, there is no more protection for these countries at the EU’s table and will now have to deal with the EU’s pressure head on.
Both within the EU and at the international level, the EU is working to promote and strengthen tax good governance mechanisms, fair taxation, and global tax transparency in order to tackle tax fraud, evasion and avoidance, their website says.
Given the global nature of unfair tax competition, this also means addressing external challenges to EU countries’ tax bases.
However, the EU refuses to list- or even thoroughly examine- jurisdictions within the EU. According to Oxfam, the 2017 EU blacklist would be properly effective only if it were extended to at least an additional 35 countries, including notorious tax havens such as Switzerland as well as EU tax havens Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Malta.
On 27 March 2019, the European Parliament voted by 505 in favour to 63 against of accepting a new report that likened Luxembourg, Malta, Ireland and the Netherlands, and Cyprus to “displaying traits of a tax haven and facilitate aggressive tax planning.” However, despite this vote, the EU Commission is not obliged to include these EU jurisdictions on the blacklist.