Last Updated on October 7, 2020, 1:22 AM AST by Anthony Morris
As the EU launched the list of non-compliant jurisdictions for tax purposes, the Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis, Dr Hon Timothy Harris said in a tweet that he takes pride in the fact that St Kitts and Nevis continues to be recognised as a responsible, cooperative tax jurisdiction internationally.
Anguilla and Barbados have been added to the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes.
Oman and Cayman Islands were removed from this list after they passed the required reforms for improving their tax policy framework.
The European Union’s list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes is a part of the external strategy of the EU for taxation and aims to contribute to ongoing efforts to promote good tax governance worldwide.
The list includes non-EU jurisdictions that either have not engaged in a dialogue with the EU regarding tax governance or have failed to deliver on their commitments to implement reforms for complying with a set of goal of tax good governance criteria, concerning fair taxation, tax transparency and implementation of international standards against profit shifting and tax base erosion.
Barbados and Anguilla were included in the EU list after their ratings were downgraded by the review reports which were published by the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, the reports downgraded the ratings to “non-compliant” and “partially compliant”.
The Cayman Islands was removed from the list after the Cayman adopted new reforms to Collective Investment Funds in September this year.
Oman was marked as compliant with all the commitments that it made after it enacted legislation to enable automatic exchange of information, ratified the OECD Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters and took all the necessary steps to activate its exchange-of-information relationships with all the EU member states.
After this update, twelve jurisdictions remain on the list of non-cooperative jurisdictions: American Samoa, Anguilla, Barbados, Fiji, Guam, Palau, Panama, Samoa, Seychelles, Trinidad and Tobago, the US Virgin Islands and Vanuatu.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
