(18 February 2020) – EU Finance Ministers today updated the EU list of ‘non-cooperative tax jurisdictions’. The list differs from the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index 2020, also published today.
Four countries or territories – Cayman Islands, Palau, Panama and Seychelles – have been added to the list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions, as they failed to comply with the required standards within the deadline.
These join the eight jurisdictions – American Samoa, Fiji, Guam, Samoa, Oman, Trinidad and Tobago, Vanuatu and US Virgin Islands – that were already on the list and remain non-compliant.
By contrast, over half of the countries covered by the 2019 listing exercise have been completely delisted, as they are now in line with all of the tax good governance standards.
However, according to the OXFAM 2019 report, “the EU’s weak assessment criteria ignore many harmful tax practices, such as low or zero corporate tax rates” (…) and “governments refuse to act effectively against tax havens within the EU’s borders.”
According to the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index 2020, also published today, the top 10 biggest enablers of financial secrecy in the world currently are the Cayman Islands, the United States, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Luxembourg, Japan, the Netherlands, the British Virgin Islands, and the United Arab Emirates.