Just six jurisdictions left on EU tax haven blacklist

The European Council removed Palau from its list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions in September, taking the much-maligned list down to only six jurisdictions.

Palau is an archipelago of over 500 islands in the western Pacific Ocean. Part of Micronesia, it lies to the west of the Philippines.

It was included in the very first backlist of 17 jurisdictions in December 2017 and has remained there until now. Eight jurisdictions were removed in January and the list dropped to just six names in March.

Several rounds of negotiations have seen jurisdictions move between the blacklist of non-compliance and the greylist of jurisdictions that have made “specific commitments” to bring their tax practices in line with EU standards.

Currently, the blacklist consists of American Samoa, Guam, Namibia, Samoa, Trinidad & Tobago and the US Virgin Islands.

The blacklist has been criticised in many quarters for its failure to include EU countries or British Overseas Territories and the crown dependencies.

Oxfam, which welcomed and supported the EU’s move to establish a single blacklist, warned that failure to include any EU countries would undermine the list’s credibility.

Greylist

Jurisdictions that failed to meet EU standards but put in place measures to meet good governance requirements were put on a separate list.

In the latest round of changes, Liechtenstein and Peru have completed the necessary reforms “to comply with all the tax good governance principles identified at EU level”, the council stated.

The three key areas they must agree to meet are transparency, fair taxation and anti-base erosion and profit shifting (Beps) measures.

Remaining jurisdictions are: