EU Removes Bahamas And Saint Kitts And Nevis From Its Blacklist

The Council of the European Union removed the Bahamas, Saint Kitts and Nevis from the EU’s list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions which is established for preventing tax fraud and is promoting good governance worldwide. Accordingly, 7 jurisdictions remain on the list, including American Samoa, Guam, Namibia, Palau, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago and the US Virgin Islands.

Decision to Delist the Two Jurisdictions

After making a high-level political commitment to remedy EU concerns, the two jurisdictions are moved from annex I (non-cooperative jurisdictions, the “blacklist”) to annex II (cooperation with respect to commitments taken, the “grey list”). This decision was made at a meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council. The implementation of the commitment will be carefully monitored by working group from EU.

EU Blacklist

The EU Blacklist was first established in December 2017. Jurisdictions are screened based on three criteria regarding tax transparency, fair taxation and implementation of anti-BEPS measures respectively. At the beginning, 17 countries were listed because of failing to meet agreed tax good governance standards. Later in January 2018, 8 jurisdictions were moved from the alleged blacklist to the grey list, following commitments to remedy EU concerns. For the remaining jurisdictions, if their tax legislation, policies and administrative practices result or may result in a loss of revenues for the EU member states, the EU and the member states could apply defensive measures.

Source: EU Council