European Union postpones decision on blacklist
The Ministers of Economy and Finance of the Twenty-seven (Ecofin) have postponed the update of the black list of tax havens that includes Panama until next February 22.
This has been confirmed by sources of the agency. All the weight of the meeting that has taken place by videoconference has been carried by the economic perspectives of the bloc and the path of recovery.
In this sense, for the first time the possibility of going to the debt markets in June of this year to finance the recovery fund of 800,000 million euros (968,848 million dollars) with which the European Union (EU) intends to get its economy out of the crisis caused by the pandemic.
In this way, it will be next February 22 when deliberations will be rushed to conclude whether to finally remove Panama from the "list of non-cooperative jurisdictions in tax matters," the sources said.
The rest of the countries that are on the list are: American Samoa, Anguilla, Barbados, Fiji Islands, Guam, Palau, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, Virgin Islands, Vanuatu and Seychelles.
Panama's financial legislation and its tax practice have been evaluated for a year by the Code of Conduct group, a department made up of technicians who analyze that the countries under examination are in coherence with the transparency standards set. the final decision is made by the collegiate body made up of all the finance ministers of the EU countries.
In December 2017, the EU included Panama in the list of countries that did not adhere to fiscal transparency standards.
It was then considered that it did not comply with the issue of tax governance as it was considered to have “a harmful preferential tax regime”.
The country spent little more than 40 days on this list and after assuming a political commitment to introduce reforms aimed at respecting global criteria, it moved to Annex II, which groups together the states in which deficiencies have been identified but which have made the commitment to modify their practices in different areas such as taxation, transparency or information exchange.
On that list, which we could call gray, Panama remained until February of last year, when it was put on the black list.
The EU considered that regulatory and legislative deficiencies still existed in the Panamanian system.
The new list will take into account the measures taken by Panama to end these rulings.
In this sense, for the first time the possibility of going to the debt markets in June of this year to finance the recovery fund of 800,000 million euros (968,848 million dollars) with which the European Union (EU) intends to get its economy out of the crisis caused by the pandemic.
In this way, it will be next February 22 when deliberations will be rushed to conclude whether to finally remove Panama from the "list of non-cooperative jurisdictions in tax matters," the sources said.
The rest of the countries that are on the list are: American Samoa, Anguilla, Barbados, Fiji Islands, Guam, Palau, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, Virgin Islands, Vanuatu and Seychelles.
Panama's financial legislation and its tax practice have been evaluated for a year by the Code of Conduct group, a department made up of technicians who analyze that the countries under examination are in coherence with the transparency standards set. the final decision is made by the collegiate body made up of all the finance ministers of the EU countries.
In December 2017, the EU included Panama in the list of countries that did not adhere to fiscal transparency standards.
It was then considered that it did not comply with the issue of tax governance as it was considered to have “a harmful preferential tax regime”.
The country spent little more than 40 days on this list and after assuming a political commitment to introduce reforms aimed at respecting global criteria, it moved to Annex II, which groups together the states in which deficiencies have been identified but which have made the commitment to modify their practices in different areas such as taxation, transparency or information exchange.
On that list, which we could call gray, Panama remained until February of last year, when it was put on the black list.
The EU considered that regulatory and legislative deficiencies still existed in the Panamanian system.
The new list will take into account the measures taken by Panama to end these rulings.