THE EU LIST of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions
During their meeting in Brussels on the 5th December 2017, the Finance Ministers of EU Member States agreed the first ever EU list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions.
The 17 countries failing to meet agreed tax good governance standards are the following:- American Samoa, Bahrain, Barbados, Grenada, Guam, Korea, Macao, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Namibia, Palau, Panama, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia and UAE.
In addition, 47 countries have committed to addressing deficiencies in their tax systems and to meet the required criteria, following contacts with the EU.
The EU listing criteria are in line with international standards and reflect the good governance standards that Member States comply with themselves. These are:
Transparency: The country should comply with international standards on automatic exchange of information and information exchange on request. It should also have ratified the OECD's multilateral convention or signed bilateral agreements with all Member States, to facilitate this information exchange. Until June 2019, the EU only requires two out of three of the transparency criteria. After that, countries will have to meet all three transparency requirements to avoid being listed.
Fair Tax Competition: The country should not have harmful tax regimes, which go against the principles of the EU's Code of Conduct or OECD's Forum on Harmful Tax Practices. Those that choose to have no or zero-rate corporate taxation should ensure that this does not encourage artificial offshore structures without real economic activity.
BEPS implementation: The country must have committed to implement the OECD's Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) minimum standards.
The Commission during 2018 will give guidance to all jurisdictions contained in the list regarding the attainment of the criteria and be delisted and will continue monitoring closely all jurisdictions since the EU List will be updated once a year.
For further information on this topic please contact
Mrs. Pauline Alexopoulou (palexopoulou@pittaslegal.com) at SOTERIS PITTAS & CO LLC,
by telephone (+357 25 028460) or by fax (+357 25 028461)
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