Panama, Uruguay, Peru, Aruba and Belize, which appear on the so-called EU tax haven grey list, have had their tax commitments published by the EU.
Each jurisdiction agreed to a raft of regulations which meant they were left off the blacklist when it was first published in December 2017.
The original list contained 17 jurisdictions, but eight were removed after one month.
These commitments were made in the form of letters from finances ministers who agreed to “high level political commitments” on behalf of their jurisdictions.
Revolving door
If the jurisdictions do not meet these commitments, the EU retains the power to add them to the blacklist.
The fluid nature of the list was demonstrated on 13 March, when the EU removed Bahrain, the Marshall Islands and St Lucia, and added the Bahamas, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and the US Virgin Islands to it.
Commitments
The commitments agreed to by the jurisdictions include Panama’s finance minister Dulcidio de la Guardia saying the country would amend its “special tax regimes” by the end of 2018.
De la Guardia said the government plans to amend these regimes through a public consultation in the first half of 2018. Once this is finished, he will present its draft amendments to the national assembly in the second semester.
Belize finance minister Joseph Waight also sent a letter to the EU outlining the jurisdictions commitments.
Waight said Belize had “firmly committed” to replacing its Export Processing Zone Regime and would be amending its non-intellectual property (IP) regimes to address their “harmful tax” properties.
While Uruguay’s finance minister Danilo Aston said his government was looking to amend a raft of the country’s industry incentive regimes, including elements of the IP tax regime and tax incentives for shared service centres.
Peru and Aruba’s financial minister also pledged to change very specific aspects of their tax codes to comply with the EU’s requirements.
Other jurisdictions made similar commitments to remain off the list, but did not give permission to the EU to publish them.
