The EU’s flimsy tax-haven blacklist just got flimsier
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THE EU IS BACK WITH A NEW BLACKLIST
Regular readers of this newsletter will know I have strong opinions about the European Union’s blacklist of tax havens. It’s supposedly a tool to stop other countries from stealing each others’ tax revenues. In reality, it is almost entirely a list of places so insignificant that the EU doesn’t mind offending them.
There is an occasional offshore jurisdiction doing something naughty, which gives the impression the EU is actually doing something while business continues as usual.
Or there was. The Cayman Islands (a British Overseas Territory which was at the top of the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index this year, with a rating of “exceptionally secretive”) has been removed from the list. It was added in the spring, supposedly because of some technical concerns about its rules governing Collective Investment Funds and, having addressed those concerns, has now been removed.