POLAND TAKES GIB OFF ITS TAX HAVEN BLACK LIST
Poland has removed Gibraltar from its schedule of countries and territories that it considers to be non-cooperative tax havens, the latest in a string of countries to do the same.
The move means Gibraltar companies have been freed from previously held restrictions when doing business with Polish companies.
It follows the steps taken by the Government of Gibraltar to ensure compliance with international standards and to extend its network of tax information exchange agreements.
Various measures put in place include the Multilateral Convention, the adoption of the Common Reporting Standard, the further bilateral exchange agreements and the FATCA arrangements with the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Poland thus joins a number of other countries that have taken similar measures to recognise Gibraltar as an internationally cooperative jurisdiction in the area of tax information exchange.
“Over the last six months or so, Canada, Estonia and Italy have also similarly removed Gibraltar from their lists,” the Gibraltar Government said in a statement.
“A further two countries have confirmed to the Gibraltar authorities that they are in the process of internal legislative or parliamentary procedures to remove Gibraltar from their lists of countries with preferential tax regimes or similar schedules that attract countermeasures.”
These will be made public as and when these countries confirm these procedures have been completed, the government said, adding that the Ministry for Financial Services continued to lobby other countries – with the support of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office – to remove Gibraltar from any lists discriminating against the Rock.
“I with the support of senior officials from my ministry have been working very hard over the last two years to ensure that those countries with which we have effective tax information exchange but continued to have us on so called ‘Tax Haven’ lists, recognise our internationally cooperative stance and remove us from such lists,” said Albert Isola, the Minister for Financial Services.
“I am delighted that in recent months Poland, Canada, Estonia and Italy have done so with a further two countries at a well advanced stage.”
“We continue to target the small number of remaining jurisdictions that, unfairly, still list us despite the effectiveness of our information sharing with them.”
