MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Spain to question Gibraltar’s exclusion from EU tax havens blacklist
Spain treasury minister Cristobal Montoro, said Spain has “more than sufficient reason” to view Gibraltar as a tax haven. Spain will call on the European Commission to include Gibraltar on the EU blacklist of tax havens published last week, it emerged over the weekend. The list names the 30 top tax havens as identified by EU countries, but Gibraltar is not on it. Only nine of the EU’s 28 members - among them Spain - view the Rock as a harmful jurisdiction for taxation.
Gibraltar’s exclusion from the list has rankled with the Spanish Government, whose treasury minister, Cristobal Montoro, said Spain has “more than sufficient reason” to view the Rock as a tax haven.
Spain is also angry that the list includes Andorra, a jurisdiction with which it has signed information exchange and double taxation agreements and which it no longer regards as a tax haven.
“We will address the Commission to clarify these issues,” Montoro reportedly said.
Last week the EU blacklisted 30 territories as the world's worst tax havens of which fourteen Caribbean countries, mostly British Overseas Territories: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis, and the British Overseas Territories of Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Each of those countries, and the other 16 on the blacklist, had been suggested by at least 10 EU member states as problematic because they were not doing enough to crack down on tax avoidance.
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Read all commentsDear Spain,
Jun 24th, 2015 - 09:08 am 0Here's a little tip which might help clear up the mystery of why the EU countries have chosen not to support Spanish propaganda. Have a look at the OECD's “Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes”. This gives Gibraltar the same rating as e.g Germany, the US, the UK and Italy, and puts Andorra one rung below. That could be why.
http://www.oecd.org/tax/transparency/GFratings.pdf
http://www.oecd.org/tax/transparency/GFratings.pdf
Spain, whine and complain all you want. You are like Argentina and the boy who cried wolf.... no one cares anymore.
Jun 24th, 2015 - 09:43 am 0As for this blatant lie:
“Last week the EU blacklisted 30 territories as the world's worst tax havens of which fourteen Caribbean countries, mostly British Overseas Territories”
6 BOTs are on the list. Of the 14 Caribbean countries, that is not MOSTLY! It is less than half.
Indeed the biggest group on the list were CELAC members. So a better statement would have been:
“Last week the EU blacklisted 30 territories as the world's worst tax havens of which fourteen Caribbean countries, mostly CELAC members”
Dr Goebbels would be proud of them.
Jun 24th, 2015 - 10:52 am 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
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