Brussels, Oct 4: The European Union (EU) is expected next week to remove Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from its blacklist of nations deemed to act as “tax havens”, as per an EU document. The Marshall Islands will also be eliminated from the same list.
On October 10, the EU is expected to eliminate both the nations from the blacklist – which includes non-cooperative jurisdictions that have failed to cooperate with the bloc on tax matters or fight against money laundering.
EU will remove Switzerland from the greylist that includes nations that have committed to making swift changes in their tax regulations in order to make them acquiescent with the bloc’s standards. The document said Switzerland has fulfilled its commitments.
The boycott, set up in 2017, initially included five non-cooperative tax jurisdictions, however, was later improved to list 15 nations: Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, American Samoa, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, Aruba, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Dominica, Fiji, Marshall Islands, Oman, United Arab Emirates, and Vanuatu.
After the removal of the UAE and Switzerland from the list, that would leave some nine jurisdictions on the blacklist. They are: Belize, Fiji, Oman, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, Vanuatu and the three United States territories of American Samoa, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.