The Council of the European Union added 10 governments to the five already on its blacklist of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions. The revised list now includes such countries as Aruba, Barbados, Belize and the United Arab Emirates.
“Today we completed our first comprehensive revision of the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions. Since it was first adopted in late 2017, the list has proven its worth in promoting forward in a cooperative manner the EU’s agenda of improving global tax practices, fighting tax avoidance and improving good governance and transparency”, Eugen Teodorovici, the minister of finance of Romania, said, as quoted in a published statement.
According to the statement, the jurisdictions failed to implement commitments that they had made to the European Union by an agreed deadline.
The Council also said that it would continue to regularly review and update the list in the coming years to take into account evolving criteria and deadlines for jurisdictions to deliver on their commitments to improving their tax governance.
The EU list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions was initially proposed in 2016 as a tool for EU member states to avoid external risks of tax abuse. The first list of third countries with problematic tax governance standards was published in December 2017 and included American Samoa, Guam and the US Virgin Islands.
At that time the Council also placed a number of countries into its so-called “Gray List,” providing them with recommendations to bring their tax transparency standards into line with international norms. The Council has reported that over 20 countries, out of the 92 taken into consideration, have taken steps to improve their tax governance.