On 10 October 2019, the EU Council agreed to remove the UAE and the Marshall Islands from the EU’s list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes. In addition, such jurisdictions as Albania, Costa Rica, Mauritius, Serbia and Switzerland were stated as compliant with all commitments on tax cooperation as they had implemented ahead of their deadline all necessary reforms to comply with EU tax good governance principles.
As it is states in the
official press release, the UAE and the Marshall Islands “have both passed the necessary reforms to implement the commitments they had made to improve by the end of 2018 their tax policy framework by introducing economic substance requirements”. The UAE currently is fully compliant with the commitments on tax cooperation and totally excluded from the so-called EU’s “black” list. Meanwhile, the Marshall Islands will continue to be monitored by the EU Council's code of conduct group pending the results of the review of the OECD's Global Forum on transparency and exchange of information taking into consideration the country’s commitments regarding exchanges of information on request.
Nine jurisdictions remain on the list of non-cooperative jurisdictions: American Samoa, Belize, Fiji, Guam, Oman, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, the US Virgin Islands and Vanuatu.
