Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/908437
maltatoday WEDNESDAY 29 NOVEMBER 2017 News 3 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The list will be announced next week by EU finance ministers, to be accompanied by potential sanctions. In its report 'Blacklist or Whitewash?', Oxfam said the exclusions cast doubt on the credibility of the EU list. "EU governments have a choice be- tween ending the harmful im- pact of tax havens on both the EU and developing countries - or whitewashing tax havens," Oxfam's Aurore Chardonnet said. Oxfam's detailed assessment claims that at least 35 coun- tries should be expected to fea- ture on the EU blacklist, name- ly Albania, Faroe Islands, Niue, Anguilla, Former Yugoslav Re- public of Macedonia, Oman, Antigua and Barbuda, Gibral- tar, Palau, Aruba, Greenland, Serbia, Bahamas, Guam, Sin- gapore, Bahrain, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Bermuda, Jersey, Taiwan, Bosnia and Herzego- vina, Marshall Islands, Trini- dad and Tobago, British Vir- gin Islands, Mauritius, United Arab Emirates, Cook Islands, Montenegro, US Virgin Is- lands, Cayman Islands, Nauru, Vanuatu, Curacao, and New Caledonia. "From the beginning, the EU list aimed to look only at coun- tries outside the EU. This step strongly harms the credibility of the process, as EU member states such as Ireland, Luxem- bourg and the Netherlands are some of the most powerful tax havens in the world, enabling some of the biggest corpora- tions in the world to pay mini- mal tax," Chardonnet said. This was also recently con- firmed by the European Com- mission itself as a result of a series of landmark rulings against Apple, Amazon and Starbucks. "Oxfam believes that the EU should put its own house in or- der when it comes to fighting tax evasion and tax avoidance and that EU countries should not be left off the list," Char- donnet said with reference to Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Malta. Malta is used as a base for foreign multinationals to set up holding companies on the island and claim an 85% rebate on corporate tax paid, usually 35% of profits booked in Malta, to end up with an effective tax rate of 5%. Aggressive tax planning was said to cost the developing world some €100 billion in lost revenues every year. The ICIJ has played a crucial role in un- covering the networks of glob- al kleptocrats and tax avoiders through Swissleaks, Offshore- Leaks, Panama Papers, and the Paradise Papers.Malta is not a secrecy jurisdiction, but com- putational scientists from the University of Amsterdam, an- alysing over 98 million firms across the world placed Malta in the top-10 list of countries dubbed "sink offshore finan- cial centres" – that is, a coun- try which attracts way more wealth than its economy can produce.An EU so-called Code of Conduct group, set up by member states, is currently screening the jurisdictions of 92 non-EU countries to see who should be on the blacklist. The group is using criteria based on transparency, fair taxation, and international ef- forts to tax profits where those profits have been made. Oxfam applied those same criteria and came up with a list of at least 35 non-EU countries as well as the four member states. See also Opinion on page 10 Global NGO says upcoming EU blacklist on tax havens should include Malta MASSIMO COSTA THERE are 3622 Libyan na- tionals registered as residents in Malta, the highest number from a non-European Union country, by a large margin. This is followed by Serbian nationals, with 2757 resi- dents, and Philippine nation- als, with 2407 residents, ac- cording to data supplied by Identity Malta. The information emerged through a reply by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to a parliamentary question posed by Democratic Party MP Godfrey Farrugia yester- day. At the other end of the spectrum, Angola, the Ba- hamas, Bahrain, Burundi, Cape Verde, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Grenada, Kosovo, Lesotho, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Swazi- land, Tonga, Turkmenistan, and the United Arab Emirates have only one national regis- tered as resident in Malta. The Prime Minister also said that there were five North Korean nationals who were living in Malta in 2016. These left the island this year, after their residence permit was not renewed. mcosta@mediatoday.com.mt Libyans top list of non-EU nationals in Malta No North Korean nationals on the island as of 2017 4500 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 Libya Serbia Philippines Russian Federation Somalia Syrian Arab Republic China Eritrea Ukraine India 3622 2757 2407 2027 1845 1289 1090 1057 896 819