EU finance ministers prepare tax haven blacklist

[Basil II the B.S]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eu-...KBN13310H?il=0

European Union finance ministers will discuss plans on Tuesday to draw up a blacklist of tax havens across the world, the EU presidency said, a move towards imposing wider sanctions on offending states and jurisdictions.

Ministers would look at criteria for identifying suspect states, the presidency said - disagreements over the definition of a haven and other details have hampered past efforts to fight tax avoidance.
EU members agreed in May to agree a common list by the end of next year following an outcry over revelations in the Panama Papers about how some multinationals and wealthy individuals were avoiding paying tax.

Human rights group Oxfam welcomed the plans and said the blacklist should include Switzerland and some states within the European Union that it identified as corporate tax havens, including "the Netherlands, Belgium, Cyprus and Luxembourg".

"Tax havens are helping big business cheat countries and their citizens out of billions of dollars in tax every year. By starving countries of money needed for education, healthcare and job creation tax havens are exacerbating poverty and inequality across the world," Oxfam added in a statement.
The EU's 28 member states currently have their own blacklists of so-called "non-cooperative jurisdictions", but these differ and each country is free to decide which restrictive measures to impose, if any. Some lists are empty.
The European Commission named 81 countries and jurisdictions in September that have a higher chance of facilitating tax avoidance and may be subject to further screening and even sanctions.


"We will focus just on the quality of calibration and not on the listing of names today," Slovak Finance Minister Peter Kazimir said, arriving at the meeting in Brussels. Slovakia holds the rotating EU presidency until the end of the year.
(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

So, finally good news, we'll see what the EU can achieve.

I'm a bit skeptical because:
-it's Oxfam saying EU countries should be included, not the EU; Oxfam is right, but they don't have any saying in this.
-I'm not even sure if sanctioning multiple EU countries will be possible without them forming a bloc and protecting each other.

Also, Malta should be probably included.

This is possibly one of the last chances the EU has to salvage itself, if they fail to do this, then European integration isn't probably worthy it.

I'm also skeptical because they had already discussed this before, 6 months ago, basically with the same headlines, and that hasn't really achieved anything.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-gl...-idUSKCN0YA18W


What do you guys think?

[Prodromos]

Well why don't these countries lower their taxes to discourage people from using foreign tax havens?

[Basil II the B.S]

Well why don't these countries lower their taxes to discourage people from using foreign tax havens?

Because it'd never work. Most tax havens are microstates that do not have, nor need any particular expenditure.

Even if we abolished every single thing for a country like France, they'd still need the military. Luxembourg? Who's going to invade them these days? Nobody.
So France would still need a 1% (random number) income tax to fund the military, Luxembourg could still afford to make it zero.

It's a race to the bottom that is utterly pointless.

Let's also look at the other side: what do normal trade relations with microstate tax havens bring for big countries? Any trade boost? Not really.

Normal trade relations with Luxembourg do not provide any kind of significant economic advantage, just one major disadvantage: tax dodging. Luxembourg is just a parasyte then. There are no logical reasons for big countries not to embargo microstate tax havens. They are worse than worthless.

[Prodromos]

This is why taxation should be limited to consumption taxes. Income tax for individuals and corporations should ideally be 0%. Consumption taxes are harder to avoid.

[Basil II the B.S]

UPDATE:
http://www.investing.com/news/stock-...-padoan-438719
EU agrees zero tax rate is not enough to define tax haven: Padoan

Another day, another failure by the EU.

[seany65]

Most 'failures' of the EU to do anything are deliberate, especially when it turns out to be in favour of the rich and powerful, even more so when those rich and powerful are in the middle of the Bureaucracy of the EU.

[Cyclops]

HM will not be amused. IIRC the Queen owns half the dodgy tax havens in the world. Isle of Man, Channel Islands ("Duchy of Normandy" lol), Bahamas, Caymans etc etc. The Chinese took Hong Kong but don't quite know what to do with it: its a tentacle of the City leeching into their system, they'd be better off bulldozing it.

This would hurt the UK and in particular the City (for which read "Global Elites") much harder than Brexit. If this is the fruit of Brexit then the UK will see a massive portion (I guess more than half) of its rumoured invisible earnings evaporate.

[Basil II the B.S]

Yeah I know. But then again, read the update, they failed to deliver, as usual.