The Turks and Caicos Islands is one of fourteen Caribbean countries among 30 territories blacklisted by the European Union (EU) as the world’s worst tax havens.
The list published by the EU on Wednesday, also includes Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis, and the US Virgin Islands.
Each of those countries, and the other 16 on the blacklist, had been suggested by at least 10 EU member states as problematic because they were not doing enough to crack down on tax avoidance.
Jurisdictions commonly labeled as offshore tax avoidance hubs, including Luxembourg, Jersey and Switzerland, were not on the list.
European Commissioner for economics, taxation and customs Pierre Moscovici said that publishing the list of “non-cooperative jurisdictions” was a decisive step in pushing the territories to adopt international standards.
“Our citizens can no longer tolerate that certain companies, often the most prosperous, avoid fair tax contributions and that certain tax regimes encourage them on this path,” he said.
The European Commission, the EU’s tax watchdog, issued the list at the same time it unveiled a plan for tackling corporate tax avoidance.
The aim of that plan is to tax companies where they earn their profits, rather than allowing firms to shift money into low-tax jurisdictions.
Moscovici said corporate tax needed a “radical reform” and all member states needed to “pull together” to ensure companies paid their way.
Meanwhile, Barbados’ Minister of International Business Donville Inniss said the move was unjustified and government would be objecting, saying Barbados had no right on that list.
“I can’t speak for all the jurisdictions but I know that this labeling of Barbados is extremely unfortunate and as minister responsible for international business I am not going to sit back and take this lightly,” he told the Daily Nation.
Cayman Finance, which represents the financial services industry in the Cayman Islands, said it was disappointed to see the territory included on the list, based on the views of 11 EU countries with which it does little international business.
“It is not clear what standards have been used by these 11 countries to come to such a conclusion, in particular when the Cayman Islands has exchange of information mechanisms in place with all but one of these countries,” it said.
“The Cayman Islands has consistently evolved and maintained its international tax cooperation practices to meet robust, balanced and globally implemented standards for regulation and cross border cooperation that apply equally to G20 countries and all International Financial Centres . . . .
It was just this past February that Premier Hon Dr. Rufus Ewing defended the Turks and Caicos when the UK’s Ed Miliband labeled the country as a ‘tax haven’ and it was just last October that the TCI signed the US FATCA agreement which now compels all financial institutions to report on US citizens regularly to the Financial Services Commission, who in turn reports to the US IRS.
RTC News understands that representatives of the various Caribbean countries are being called upon to fight this injustice, together. A joint position by the BOTC’s (including the Turks and Caicos Islands), is expected to be communicated in a press release that RTC News will share with you as soon as it’s made available to us.
The other countries on the blacklist are: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Guernsey, Monaco, Mauritius, Liberia, Seychelles, Brunei, Hong Kong, Maldives, Cook Islands, Nauru, Niue and Marshall Island.
