The Council of the European Union is expected to make changes to its list of non-cooperative jurisdictions in taxation matters, also known as the blacklist, at the ECOFIN meeting scheduled for 13 March 2018. The blacklist was first published on 5 December 2017 and included 17 jurisdictions.

A briefing document provides  that Bahrain, the Marshal Islands and St Lucia would be removed from the blacklist following respective commitments made and moved to annex II (cooperation with respect to commitments made, known as the grey list).

The Council is also expected to amend the grey list to take account of commitments made by the Labuan Islands and Malaysia. Implementation of the commitments made by all five jurisdictions will be carefully monitored. Further, the Council will reach a conclusion on its position on seven Caribbean jurisdictions which were initially kept out of consideration after being hit by hurricanes in 2017. The Bahamas, Saint Kitts and Nevis and the US Virgin Islands would be added to the blacklist, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, the British Virgin Islands, and Dominica would be added to the grey list.

The decision will leave nine jurisdictions on the blacklist: six of the original 17 plus three Caribbean jurisdictions. Eight of the original 17 jurisdictions were removed from the blacklist on 23 January 2018.

For further information, please contact Paul Hale or Anvit Jain.