Panama is Added To The European Union List Of Tax Havens

The European Union countries have approved maintaining Panama, Russia, and nine other jurisdictions on their tax haven blacklists, after finding that they continue to fail to cooperate in this area or have failed to implement the reforms they had committed to.  The list, specifically, consists of American Samoa, Anguilla, Fiji, Guam, Palau, Panama, Russia, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, the American Virgin Islands, and Vanuatu, according to a statement from the EU Council, the institution in which the Member States are represented.  “Although there have been some positive developments in this round of updates, the Council regrets that these jurisdictions are still not fully cooperating on tax issues and encourages them to improve their legal framework to address the identified problems ,” the institution explained. 

This is the second time this repertoire has been updated without any changes, after the revision last February also kept these eleven jurisdictions in the same list.  The list, which has been in operation since 2017 and is updated every six months, includes jurisdictions that fail to meet EU standards on tax transparency, tax fairness, or the implementation of international standards to prevent tax base erosion or profit shifting, and that also fail to take steps to address these problems.  Listing on it does not entail financial penalties, beyond a ban on European funds transiting through entities based in these jurisdictions and administrative measures such as more frequent audits, although states can decide at the national level to impose other types of penalties. 

EU finance ministers, meeting in Luxembourg, did adopt changes to the so-called “grey list,” which lists jurisdictions that do not fully meet EU standards for cooperative status but have committed to making changes to comply.  Vietnam has exited the tax reform after complying with the implementation of standards requiring multinationals to report their tax performance country by country, while Greenland, Jordan, and Morocco have entered the tax reform after committing to improving this aspect.  For its part, Montenegro has committed to improving the exchange of financial information, both automatically and upon request, and will therefore be placed on the “grey list” until it complies.  As a result, in addition to these four jurisdictions, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, the British Virgin Islands, Brunei Darussalam, Eswatini, the Seychelles, and Türkiye are also included.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs assures that Panama will “modernize” its territorial tax system to remove itself from the list of tax havens: what the changes imply.