BVI added to EU’s tax haven blacklist | Daily Caribbean News
The British Virgin Islands along with Russia, Marshall Islands and Costa Rica were added to the European Union’s list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes yesterday.
This is the first time that the BVI, which has a long history of providing international banking services, made the list since its creation in December 2017.
The BVI joins Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, US Virgin Islands, The Bahamas and Anguilla as the other Caribbean countries and territories on the list.
In a statement, the EU Council said it added the BVI because it was “found not to be sufficiently in compliance with the [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] standard on exchange of information on request”.
Elisabeth Svantesson, Minister for Finance of Sweden, added: “We ask all listed countries to improve their legal framework and to work towards compliance with international standards in taxation.”
In response to the news, the BVI Government said it “is committed to complying with evolving international standards on transparency and the fight against financial crime”.
The government highlighted recent legislative changes such as the BVI Business Companies Amendment Act 2022 and BVI Business Amendment Regulations 2022 which are meant to meet requirements set out by the OECD.
“These key legislative developments were not recognised in the most recent OECD Peer Review rating given to the BVI in November 2022, which moved BVI from ‘largely compliant’ to ‘partially compliant’. As a ‘largely compliant’ rating is one of the criteria that determines the ‘EU List of Non-cooperative Jurisdictions for Tax Purposes’ (EU List), the BVI has been added to Annex I as a formality and matter of process,” the government stated.
The BVI has requested that a supplementary review of its compliance regime be done by the OECD Global Forum as part of efforts to return to the list of “largely compliant” countries.
It was not all bad news for the Caribbean as Barbados and Jamaica were removed from the EU’s grey list after fulfilling their reform commitment
