As the Guardian has reported:
The Cayman Islands, a British overseas territory, is to be put on an EU blacklist of tax havens, less than two weeks after the UK's withdrawal from the bloc.
In a clear indication of the country's loss of influence on the EU's decision-making, the bloc's 27 finance ministers are expected to sign off on the decision next week.
The EU's blacklist is an attempt to clamp down on the estimated £506bn lost to aggressive tax avoidance every year but member states are not “screened” in the process of drawing up the blacklist.
I have no great faith in blacklists.
Nor, come to that, have I ever thought it right that the EU would not consider member states to be tax havens when several very clearly are.
But I did predict this consequence of Brexit for the UK's tax havens.
All that surprises me is that Cayman is the only one to be listed now. I think there could be more.
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Yes, BREXIT is going to skew EU considerations and political decisions are going to be made, but:
1. The ordinary Cayman Islander will suffer even more than they do already – I understand it is a fairly shoddy place to live. They are also being encumbered with a cruise ship dock that Cayman will ultimately have to pay for (let alone environmental considerations)
2. At least EU is moving ahead with naming/blacklisting tax havens and that alone is helpful, as is the direction of travel.
3. maybe, just maybe, EU will begin making e.g. Luxembourg, Ireland, Cyprus, Malta et al a bit more compliant on the financial and tax evasion front. Possibly because the stench becomes too great.
Only if you believe that the so-called EU blacklists have any influence whatsoever. I say bring it on. Because it means that blacklists that are important will have less impact and the whole blacklisting thing based on nonsense criteria goes away. If a country decides to impost a nil rate of tax on personal income, or corporate income, and as long as that applies only to domestic activities within that country, it should not be labelled a ‘tax haven’ or ‘secrecy jurisdiction’. End of.
But that’s nor what they do
So let’s not be silly about that
Why are the Cayman Islands the first to go into the “blacklist”. I think there are other territories more relevant than the Cayman Islands.
What is your opinion about it?
Mauro González
Ph Student
https://www.taxjustice.net/2020/02/14/after-brexit-eu-blacklists-uks-territory-cayman/