Europaudvalget 2019-20
Rådsmøde 3736 - økofin Bilag 4
Offentligt
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Council of the
European Union
Brussels, 3 December 2019
(OR. en)
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FISC 465
ECOFIN 1093
NOTE
From:
To:
Subject:
General Secretariat of the Council
Council
EU list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions
- Presentation by the Danish delegation
Delegations will find in Annex a Note by the Danish delegation on the EU list of non-cooperative
tax jurisdictions. This delegation will provide information to ECOFIN on 5 December 2019 (under
non-legislative AOB) on this issue.
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Rådsmøde nr. 3736 (økonomi og finans) den 5. december 2019 - Bilag 4: Note vedr. AOB-punkt om EU’s fælles liste over ikke-samarbejdsvillige skattejurisdiktioner på rådsmødet (økonomi og finans) den 5. december 2019
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ANNEX
The EU list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions
In recent years, we have taken many important steps to fight tax evasion and tax avoidance. We
have significantly strengthened our tax standards, transparency and information sharing globally
and within the EU.
The EU list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions marks an important milestone in this work. Since
its launch in 2017, more than 60 jurisdictions have committed to comply with the agreed criteria
and by now half of these jurisdictions have delivered on their commitments. This demonstrates the
leverage of the list. The ongoing discussions in the Code of Conduct Group contribute to a positive
gradual improvement of the criteria, the defensive measures, and the scope of the list and its
leverage. This includes the latest agreement in the Group on strengthening the commitment to
defensive measures towards jurisdictions on the list, as well as the plans to screen additional
jurisdictions and to include a future criteria on beneficial ownership.
Nevertheless, our citizens call for us to continue and intensify our efforts to fight tax evasion. It is
therefore necessary to consider at our political level whether and how
within the current
framework and rules applying within the EU - we can set an even higher level of ambition for the
work in the Code of Conduct Group on the list, its criteria and its defensive measures. It is crucial to
clearly signal that we are committed to continuously develop and refine our methods to target those
jurisdictions that profit from enabling tax evasion and avoidance.
We therefore invite the incoming Presidencies of the Council to facilitate political discussions of the
EU list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions and its criteria as well as the processes applied to make
sure they are as effective and ambitious as possible. This will be a useful opportunity to ensure the
appropriate political guidance for the important technical work in the Code of Conduct Group. We
suggest having a political discussion in the ECOFIN in one of our next meetings where a more
comprehensive update is expected on the basis of lapsing deadlines for a number of jurisdictions.
As a basis for the discussion we invite the Code of Conduct Group to evaluate the effectiveness of
the list and to make concrete suggestion on how the criteria and the defensive measures could best
be strengthened.
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ANNEX
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Rådsmøde nr. 3736 (økonomi og finans) den 5. december 2019 - Bilag 4: Note vedr. AOB-punkt om EU’s fælles liste over ikke-samarbejdsvillige skattejurisdiktioner på rådsmødet (økonomi og finans) den 5. december 2019
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A possible theme for such discussions should be to consider whether the current criteria provide
sufficient protection against tax avoidance and evasion. And what possible improvements could be
feasible and desirable. Furthermore we could take stock of our commitments to the defensive
measures.
At some point, we also need to reflect on whether the standards we apply to ourselves internally
within the EU are as ambitious as our citizens should rightly expect. Do we internally have
sufficient safeguards against tax avoidance and evasion? This is of course another broader and
wider discussions than the EU list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions but an important point to be
made here is that we should continue our work to ensure that any progress within the EU is
transformed into new requirements and criteria for third countries.
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ANNEX
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