Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1417022
10 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 6 OCTOBER 2021 NEWS MATTHEW VELLA DESPITE the biggest tax leak ever in the Pandora Papers, Eu- ropean finance ministers have decided to remove Anguilla, Dominica and Seychelles from the EU's list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes. All three had previously been placed on the list because they did not meet the EU's tax transparency criteria of being ranked as at least 'largely com- pliant' by the OECD Global Fo- rum regarding the exchange of information on request. The delisting was preceded by the OECD's decision to grant these jurisdictions a supple- mentary review on this matter. Nine jurisdictions remain on the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions: American Samoa, Fiji, Guam, Palau, Panama, Sa- moa, Trinidad and Tobago, US Virgin Islands and Vanuatu. The three countries will join Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Malay- sia, North Macedonia, Qatar and Uruguay as jurisdictions that do not yet comply with all international tax standards but that have committed to imple- menting tax good governance principles. Australia, Eswantini and Mal- dives implemented all the nec- essary tax reforms and have therefore been removed from it. Twice a year the Council re- vises its list of non-cooperative jurisdictions to promote global good governance in taxation and inform member states on which non-EU jurisdictions engage in abusive tax practic- es. The criteria for listing are in line with international tax standards and focus on tax transparency, fair taxation and prevention of tax base erosion and profit shifting. "The reaction of EU finance ministers to the Pandora Pa- pers borders on denial of real- ity," Green MEP Sven Giegold, who formed part of the PANA committee of MEPs on the Panama Papers. "While tax havens continue to flourish, EU finance ministers are slashing their list of tax ha- vens. Instead of showing a firm reaction to the Pandora Pa- pers, the EU finance ministers' meeting is a topsy-turvy world. Important tax havens are miss- ing from this EU list anyway, and now the list is getting even shorter. "The Pandora Papers show that billionaires and powerful people use many tax havens that are not on the EU list. Two-thirds of the shell com- panies in the Pandora data are in the British Virgin Islands, which are missing from the EU tax haven list. The EU list of tax havens is hardly any good in the fight against global tax fraud." Giegold called for hard crite- ria for the global exchange of information between tax au- thorities and more transpar- ency and a revision of the tax havens list. "We have long been calling for stricter criteria, an inde- pendent decision-making pro- cess, and transparency about the actual owners of letterbox companies and real estate. The Pandora Papers show that in- formation on beneficial owners is central to uncovering exten- sive ownership. "We also demand publicly ac- cessible registers of beneficial owners from third countries and improvements in the cri- teria for asset verification and fair taxation. The EU can only make credible progress here if it also applies these criteria to intra-European tax havens." Despite Pandora Papers, EU slashes tax haven list Sven Giegold