Tax analysis: With increasing scrutiny around the use of
offshore financial centres, Ross Munro, partner in the investment
funds and regulatory department at Harneys, talks about the
relevance of the EU tax haven blacklist, and why it is no longer an
accurate reflection of those countries who partake in questionable
tax practices.
How is the blacklist drawn up?
In short, very badly. Even the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) itself described it as
'very unfortunate' that the publication looked like the
establishment of a list. In the highly politicised world of
supra-national organisations that is likely to be the closest to a
public admission that the EU Commission was mistaken to take the
action it did. Inexplicably, the OECD reports that the EU has
confirmed that it did not intend to establish a blacklist--yet the
EU's own communication just a few days earlier described the
publication as 'an EU-wide list of third
