Taxation: Belize removed from EU list, North Macedonia meets commitments

The Council today agreed to remove Belize from the EU’s list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions.

Belize has passed the necessary reforms to improve its tax regime for international business companies that was due to be implemented by end 2018. Belize will therefore be moved from annex I of the conclusions to annex II, pending the implementation of the country’s commitment to amend or abolish the harmful features of its foreign source income exemption regime by end 2019.

The Council also found the Republic of North Macedonia compliant with all its commitments on tax cooperation following its ratification of the OECD multilateral convention on mutual administrative assistance. The country  was therefore removed from annex II of the conclusions.

Background

The EU list contributes to on-going efforts to prevent tax avoidance and promote good governance principles such as tax transparency, fair taxation or international standards against tax base erosion and profit shifting.

The list was established in December 2017, revised in March 2019 and is contained in annex I of the conclusions adopted by the Council. The conclusions also contain a second annex which includes jurisdictions that have undertaken sufficient commitments to reform their tax policies and whose reforms are being monitored by the Council’s code of conduct group on business taxation.

Eight jurisdictions remain on the list of non-cooperative jurisdictions: American Samoa, Fiji, Guam, Oman, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, the US Virgin Islands and Vanuatu.

The work on the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions is a dynamic process. The Council will continue to regularly review and update the list in 2019, whilst it has requested a more stable process as from 2020 (two updates per year).