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EU drops Aruba, Barbados and Bermuda from tax-haven blacklist

epa06311370 (FILE) - A view of the beach at Pompano Beach Club in Southampton, Bermuda, 14 June 2017 (reissued 06 November 2017). Media reports on 05 November 2017 state that a leak of financial documents dubbed the Paradise Papers with 13.4 million documents has revealed how powerful and ultra-wealthy people secretly invest vast amounts of cash in offshore tax havens. The vast majority of the transactions involve no legal wrongdoing. According to the reports, the leaked documents allegedly originate from the Bermuda-based lawfirm Appleby and were obtained by German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung and shared among the ICIJ, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. EPA-EFE/CJ GUNTHER

European Finance Ministers meeting in Brussels  dropped Aruba, Barbados and Bermuda from its tax-haven blacklist.

The list, now down to 12 countries and territories, was established in December 2017 following a series of scandals, including Panama Papers and LuxLeaks, that prompted the EU to step up its action against tax fraud by multinationals and wealthy individuals.

The Finance Ministers noted that Barbados had committed to address the EU’s concerns by replacing its “harmful” preferential regimes with a measure of like effect, while Aruba and Bermuda had now fulfilled their commitments, the finance ministers noted.

Barbados and Bermuda have been shifted to the grey list of countries that have made enough commitments, while Aruba

has been completely removed from both black and grey lists.

The remaining 12 countries on the blacklist are: American Samoa, Belize, Dominica, Fiji, Guam, Marshall Islands, Oman, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, United Arab Emirates, U.S. Virgin Islands and Vanuatu.

 

Via Reuters

 

 

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