Bahamas removed from France’s tax blacklist

The Bahamas’ removal from France’s blacklist of non-cooperative states and territories on tax matters is another step toward rehabilitating the name of this jurisdiction, Attorney General Carl Bethel said yesterday.

The French government on March 4 published a decree in the Official Diary of the French Republic that it had modified its list of non-cooperative states and territories, removing The Bahamas and Oman.

Anguilla, Dominica, Palau, Panama and Seychelles were added to the list.

“It’s just another step towards thoroughly rehabilitating the name of The Bahamas from these listings all over the world. We have succeeded thus far in having us removed from the FATF (Financial Action Task Force) grey list and now the government of the Republic of France has removed us based on the fact that we addressed their concerns,” Bethel told Guardian Business.

The Bahamas was added to the French blacklist in December 2019, at which time the republic imposed sanctions which included withholding taxes at a higher rate on financial transactions involving an effort to disincentivize its taxpayers from doing business in blacklisted countries.

Minister of State for Finance Kwasi Thompson in a statement released yesterday said the delisting is the culmination of extensive
bilateral discussions between The Bahamas and the French government.

“From the moment we learned that The Bahamas was listed, we set about to vigorously disprove France’s assumptions about our commitment to the international regulatory standards on tax cooperation and exchange of information for tax purposes. Once again, we have aptly demonstrated that The Bahamas is indeed doing its part in the global effort to eradicate harmful tax practices,” he said.

Bethel disclosed earlier this year that The Bahamas had been blacklisted because of an incorrect email address the French government was using to correspond with the Ministry of Finance for further information on the tax affairs of its citizens and registered companies.

The Ministry of Finance noted yesterday that it has since amplified its engagement in the international community to defend the integrity of the jurisdiction against the criticism that it is not doing enough to curb financial crimes.

The Bahamas was just in December last year removed from the FATF’s grey list of jurisdictions with strategic deficiencies in anti-money laundering and countering terrorism financing.

Last March, the European Union (EU) removed The Bahamas from its list of uncooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes. However, EU parliamentarians earlier this year voted on a resolution to make it more difficult for “tax havens” – which The Bahamas has been classified as – to be removed from its blacklist, if they have low or zero rated corporate taxes.

The French list of non-cooperative states and territories in tax matters is updated annually by the French Ministry of Economics and Finance.

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