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The Netherlands is a top EU tax haven for corporations, an Oxfam analysis of European Commission data shows.

EU governments are on the brink of agreeing a tax haven blacklist that could ensure corporate tax havens face international sanctions for the first time. This is a welcome move if the list includes objective and comprehensive criteria instead of focussing solely on opacity of tax systems, said Oxfam today.

Today, the European Court of Justice ruled that Ireland illegally provided state aid to Apple through a tax deal which upholds the European Commission’s 2016 decision. As a result, Apple must now pay back €13 billion in unpaid taxes. 

The Netherlands is a top EU tax haven, an Oxfam analysis of European Commission data shows.

Despite EU intentions to crack down on tax avoidance, the European Commission’s Anti-Tax Avoidance Package does not do what it says on the tin, warns Oxfam, and developing countries will feel the EU’s failure most.

The European Commission has today opened a state aid probe into the tax affairs of furniture giant Ikea with the Netherlands. This new case shows Europe still has to put its own house in order when it comes to ending tax havens within the EU.

Today, European finance ministers updated the EU tax haven list. They added four countries to the blacklist (British Virgin Islands, Costa Rica, the Marshall Islands and the Russian Federation), three to the greylist (Albania, Aruba and Curacao) and they removed four countries from the greylist (Barbados, Jamaica, North Macedonia and Uruguay).

“The Panama Papers give us a disturbing look into the murky world of tax dodging, a problem that governments and international institutions refuse to tackle head-on. The true scandal is that many of the cases uncovered are not always illegal, but instead, fully legal practices that ruthless abuse a weak and inadequate tax system."

EU finance ministers look set to whitewash nine of the world’s worst tax havens when they update the EU tax haven blacklist next week, says Oxfam.

European Union finance ministers have removed the British territory of Bermuda, Barbados, and the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba from the EU blacklist of tax havens today.