Guam remains on EU's tax havens list

 By Mar-Vic Cagurangan

Guam, along with American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands, remains on the Council of European Union’s blacklist of tax havens, which has shrunk from 23 in 2019 to 10 this year.

“The entries for American Samoa, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands have been updated to reflect ongoing efforts to address compliance with certain tax cooperation standards,” the council said in a statement last week. “However, this progress was not considered enough to warrant their complete removal from the list.”

The three U.S. territories implement tax systems that mirror the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. They have been on the list since 2017 for allegedly not sharing data, failing to ratify the Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters and maintaining "harmful tax regimes."

The U.S. Treasury has challenged the inclusion of the U.S. territories on the list, noting that they are not independent nations and cannot sign international tax agreements directly. The government of Guam is the sole taxing authority.

Palau, which was cleared in 2018 but reinstated in 2020, and Vanuatu, which was first blacklisted in 2019, have stayed on the list as well.

The blacklisted Pacific jurisdictions join Anguilla, Panama, Russia, Turks and Caicos Islands and Vietnam in this year’s updated list.

Fiji, Samoa and Trinidad and Tobago have been stricken off the list. “They now comply with all agreed international standards,” the EU said.

The list, which names jurisdictions considered "non-cooperative," is part of the EU’s efforts to promote tax good governance worldwide, the council said.

“It is composed of countries that fail to comply with agreed international tax standards or do not fulfil their commitments on tax good governance within a specific timeframe.”

This list, established in 2017, is part of the EU's work to fight tax evasion and create a stronger deterrent for countries that refuse to play fair on tax matters.