The Council adopted a revised list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes. The Commission presented its review of the EU economic governance. The ministers also discussed the European Semester 2020 and the EU budget for 2021.
EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions
The Council today adopted revised conclusions on the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes.
In addition to the 8 jurisdictions that were already listed, the EU also decided to include the following jurisdictions in its list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions:
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Cayman Islands;
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Palau;
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Panama;
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Seychelles.
These jurisdictions did not implement the tax reforms to which they had committed by the agreed deadline.
Annex II of the conclusions, which covers jurisdictions with pending commitments, reflects the deadline extensions granted to 12 jurisdictions to enable them to pass the necessary reforms to deliver on their commitments. Most of the deadline extensions concern developing countries without a financial centre who have already made meaningful progress in the delivery of their commitments.
16 jurisdictions (Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cabo Verde, Cook Islands, Curaçao, Marshall Islands, Montenegro, Nauru, Niue, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Vietnam) managed to implement all the necessary reforms to comply with EU tax good governance principles ahead of the agreed deadline and are therefore removed from Annex II.
Taxation: Council revises its EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions
European Semester
The Council adopted the following texts related to the 2020 European Semester economic policy coordination process:
Council recommendation on the economic policies of the euro area
Economic governance review
The Commission presented its communication on the review of EU economic governance published on 5 February.
The review assesses how effective the economic surveillance framework has been in achieving the following objectives:
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ensuring sustainable government finances and economic growth, as well as avoiding macroeconomic imbalances;
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enabling closer coordination of economic policies; and
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promoting convergence in member states' economic performance
EU budget
The Council adopted guidelines for the 2021 EU budget.
The Council considers that the next budget should ensure prudent budgeting and leave sufficient margins under the ceilings to deal with unforeseen circumstances. At the same time sufficient resources should be allocated to the implementation of the Union's programmes and actions that contribute most towards achieving Union policies. In addition, the budget should allow commitments already made under the current MFF to be paid in due time, in order to avoid any unpaid claims.
VAT reforms
The Council adopted two reforms of existing VAT rules.
The first reform concerns the detection of tax fraud in cross-border e-commerce transactions. The new rules will enable member states to collect, in a harmonised way, the records made electronically available by payment service providers, such as banks. In addition, a new central electronic system will be set up for the storage of the payment information and for the further processing of this information by national anti-fraud officials.
E-commerce: Council adopts new rules for exchange of VAT payment data
Remarks by Executive Vice-President Dombrovskis at the ECOFIN press conference
© European Council
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