EU list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions

Wed 13 Dec 2017

The European Union has announced the publication of a list of 17 non-cooperative tax jurisdictions. In addition, 47 jurisdictions not included on the list have committed to addressing deficiencies in their tax systems by 31 December 2018, or the end of 2019 for developing countries without financial centres.

The press release also states that the European Commission expects Member States to continue towards strong and dissuasive countermeasures for listed jurisdictions which can complement the existing EU-level defensive measures related to funding.

Jurisdictions were assessed according to three criteria. The list of countries and the criteria they failed is included below.

The six jurisdictions that have failed on the transparency criteria may well be used by those seeking to evade tax. In view of the fact that there is a risk of a charge of corporate criminal offence of failure to prevent the criminal facilitation of tax evasion, particular care should be taken when dealing with persons known to be using those six jurisdictions.

When considering the other jurisdictions on the list, care should also be taken to bear in mind the fact that the EU intends to use dissuasive countermeasures, although we do not yet know the details of these. For a discussion of international tax matters, please get in touch with a member of the Mazars international tax team.