On 24 February 2022, the Council of the European Union (“the Council”) adopted Conclusions on the revised EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes. The EU list was established in December 2017, and it is part of the external tax strategy of the EU. One of the main objectives pursued by the enforcement of this Act is to contribute to transparent and fair tax governance.
The current version of the list contains the following non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes enlisted under Annex I: American Samoa, Cayman Islands, Fiji, Guam, Oman, Palau, Panama, Samoa, Seychelles, Trinidad and Tobago, US Virgin Islands, Vanuatu.
The Conclusions also include an Annex II (also known as “the grey list”) listing the non-cooperative jurisdictions that have achieved certain improvement with respect to their tax policies or related cooperation. With the latest amendments the following countries are listed under the grey list: Anguilla, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Botswana, the British Virgin Islands, Costa Rica, Dominica, Hong Kong, Israel, Jamaica, Jordan, Malaysia, Montserrat, North Macedonia, Qatar, Seychelles, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Uruguay, Russian Federation, Turks and Caicos Islands, Vietnam.
Annex I includes countries that have not entered a constructive dialogue with the EU on tax governance or have not fulfilled their commitments to implement the necessary reforms. These reforms aim to meet a set of objective criteria to ensure transparency in the countries' tax policies, fair taxation and the application of international standards designed to prevent base erosion and profit shifting. With the latest revision of the EU list, no jurisdictions were added to or removed from the list of non-cooperative jurisdictions (Annex I).
The Council also approved amendments to the jurisdictions listed in Annex II, which covers countries cooperating with the EU and international partners and whose work in the area of taxation is regarded as constructive at this time. However, these countries remain subject to close monitoring as they implement these commitments. In February 2022 the grey list was updated, and the following jurisdictions were included: Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, Israel, Monserrat, the Russian Federation, Tunisia, Turks and Caicos Islands and Vietnam.
The Council, and in particular the Code of Conduct Group, will continue to monitor countries in order to update the list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes against the existing criteria on transparent tax policy, fair taxation and the implementation of measures to combat base erosion and profit shifting.