Nearly a quarter of the world’s major tax havens on a ‘blacklist’ published by the EC are British Overseas Territories or Crown Dependencies. It includes Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos islands. As part of the EC’s action plan, the publication of this list includes countries and jurisdictions which have been listed by at least 10 member states. Some countries, including the UK and Germany do not maintain lists of non-cooperative jurisdictions.
The 30-strong list has been criticised for failing to include EU member state Luxembourg which in recent months has been involved in a series of controversies over tax deals for multinationals, particularly following a recent report on Walmart by Americans for Tax Fairness, a US campaign group which calculated that it paid less than 1 per cent in tax to Luxembourg on $1.3bn of profits between 2010 and 2013.
Guernsey’s chief minister has expressed surprise that Guernsey has been included on the list. ‘The Commission appears to have hurriedly put together a list of so-called “non-cooperative” non-EU jurisdictions using some very arbitrary criteria. It is this type of arbitrary and inconsistent use of “blacklists” that international standards are supposed to be replacing, so this seems to me to run counter to what the Commission itself is trying to do on tax transparency. It also runs counter to Commissioner Moscovici’s own positive views on Guernsey, which we discussed just over a month ago. The fact remains that we lead a number of EU Member States on tax transparency and cooperation, and we will be partners of the EU in the automatic exchange of information under the Common Reporting Standard. This means we are well ahead of the full EU 28 – and yet we have been erroneously placed on an arbitrarily defined blacklist. Our priority is to be removed from this list.”
In response to Bermuda’s inclusion in the list, Bob Richards, minister of finance said: ‘11 EU Member States have Bermuda on their national black-list. To be included on this new “uncooperative” list, one would have to be “black-listed” by 10 or more EU member states, not 9, 8, 7 or 6. Not all EU members agree on how they compile their blacklists. Some are based on a combination of tax transparency concerns and low tax rates; others are triggered by low tax rates alone, and some are triggered by a lack of a tax information exchange agreement. Bermuda prides itself in being a highly cooperative business centre and has gone the extra mile to be ahead of the curve in this respect.’
Following his statement, Poland has contacted the EC to confirm that Bermuda is no longer on its blacklist.
Nearly a quarter of the world’s major tax havens on a ‘blacklist’ published by the EC are British Overseas Territories or Crown Dependencies. It includes Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos islands. As part of the EC’s action plan, the publication of this list includes countries and jurisdictions which have been listed by at least 10 member states. Some countries, including the UK and Germany do not maintain lists of non-cooperative jurisdictions.
The 30-strong list has been criticised for failing to include EU member state Luxembourg which in recent months has been involved in a series of controversies over tax deals for multinationals, particularly following a recent report on Walmart by Americans for Tax Fairness, a US campaign group which calculated that it paid less than 1 per cent in tax to Luxembourg on $1.3bn of profits between 2010 and 2013.
Guernsey’s chief minister has expressed surprise that Guernsey has been included on the list. ‘The Commission appears to have hurriedly put together a list of so-called “non-cooperative” non-EU jurisdictions using some very arbitrary criteria. It is this type of arbitrary and inconsistent use of “blacklists” that international standards are supposed to be replacing, so this seems to me to run counter to what the Commission itself is trying to do on tax transparency. It also runs counter to Commissioner Moscovici’s own positive views on Guernsey, which we discussed just over a month ago. The fact remains that we lead a number of EU Member States on tax transparency and cooperation, and we will be partners of the EU in the automatic exchange of information under the Common Reporting Standard. This means we are well ahead of the full EU 28 – and yet we have been erroneously placed on an arbitrarily defined blacklist. Our priority is to be removed from this list.”
In response to Bermuda’s inclusion in the list, Bob Richards, minister of finance said: ‘11 EU Member States have Bermuda on their national black-list. To be included on this new “uncooperative” list, one would have to be “black-listed” by 10 or more EU member states, not 9, 8, 7 or 6. Not all EU members agree on how they compile their blacklists. Some are based on a combination of tax transparency concerns and low tax rates; others are triggered by low tax rates alone, and some are triggered by a lack of a tax information exchange agreement. Bermuda prides itself in being a highly cooperative business centre and has gone the extra mile to be ahead of the curve in this respect.’
Following his statement, Poland has contacted the EC to confirm that Bermuda is no longer on its blacklist.
