5 December 2017ILS

Premier welcomes Bermuda’s exclusion from tax ‘blacklist’

The Premier of Bermuda has welcomed the outcome of a 10 month investigation by the European Union that has excluded Bermuda from a so-called blacklist of countries that it claims are not doing enough to crack down on offshore avoidance schemes.

A list of such countries has been drafted by the European Council’s Code of Conduct (COC), a group of finance ministers from EU member states.

The countries on the so-called blacklist are: American Samoa, Bahrain, Barbados, Grenada, Guam, South Korea, Macau, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Namibia, Palau, Panama, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.

The list excludes a number of British Overseas Territories including Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. They had both previously been included on a 2015 list which was subsequently scrapped following a row over its methodology.

Bermuda and the Cayman Islands were referenced in the report, however, as being committed to addressing concerns relating to economic substance – where offshore structures may be used to attract profits without real economic activity – by 2018.

The Government of Bermuda said it welcomed the fact that the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) has reaffirmed Bermuda’s status as a cooperative tax jurisdiction. The Hon. David Burt JP, MP, Premier of Bermuda, said: “Once again the EU has recognized Bermuda’s status as a cooperative jurisdiction, despite the interest surrounding a hack on a global law firm and related documents in the public domain.

“The outcome of the ECOFIN decision demonstrates Bermuda’s position as a global leader in international tax transparency. Bermuda is not a place to hide money, given its Common Reporting Standard and Country by Country automatic reporting regimes and membership in the OECD Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion & Profit Shifting.

“Any legitimate tax authority can request and receive information from Bermuda, under 100-plus tax-transparency relationships pursuant to the OECD multilateral tax treaty, and more than 40 bilateral Tax Information Exchange Agreements.

“Bermuda welcomes continued dialogue with the EU Code of Conduct Group and EU Member States.”




More on this story

News
18 December 2017   Bermuda has become the first UK Overseas Territory to sign Country-by-Country Competent Authority Agreements with the UK and US. Both recent agreements comply with OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) tax-transparency standards.
News
13 March 2019   Premier David Burt has stated that he is confident that Bermuda will not be on the European Union’s (EU) blacklist of "non-cooperative" jurisdictions for very long.

More on this story

News
18 December 2017   Bermuda has become the first UK Overseas Territory to sign Country-by-Country Competent Authority Agreements with the UK and US. Both recent agreements comply with OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) tax-transparency standards.
News
13 March 2019   Premier David Burt has stated that he is confident that Bermuda will not be on the European Union’s (EU) blacklist of "non-cooperative" jurisdictions for very long.