The EU has informed the governments of six countries that recent changes made to their laws do not go far enough to avoid the EU’s blacklist of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions.

The letters issued from the EU’s Code of Conduct Group to Barbados, Belize, Curaçao, Mauritius, Saint Lucia and Seychelles on 1 February 2019. In order to avoid the blacklist, the letters ask for a commitment to end the harmful practices identified and comply with the blacklist criteria by 31 December 2019, with no grandfathering provisions. Each of the six countries appears in the blacklist’s Annex II, which sets out a watch-list of countries with harmful tax regimes who have committed to abolish or amend their regimes in line with EU standards.

The first ever EU list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions was agreed by Member States on 5 December 2017. This list is part of the EU’s work to fight tax evasion and avoidance and aims to create a stronger deterrent for countries that consistently refuse to play fair on tax matters.