Off the hook: how the EU is about to whitewash the world’s worst tax havens

Publication date: 7 March 2019
Author: Johan Langerock

Tax havens deprive governments around the world of billions of dollars each year, fuelling inequality and poverty. The EU blacklisting process was announced as an attempt to put an end to the era of tax havens. Unfortunately – according to Oxfam research – the EU is set to whitewash some of the world’s worst tax havens.

This paper reveals how during the first annual review of the EU’s blacklist and grey list of tax havens, at least nine notorious tax havens will be de-listed, including Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Panama. The report also shows that five EU member states would be blacklisted if the EU applied its own criteria to member states.